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Best wins of the Dennis Gates era: No. 2

Kyle McAreavyby: Kyle McAreavy07/17/25Kyle_mcareavy
Missouri HC Dennis Gates
Evert Nelson | The Capital-Journal | USA TODAY NETWORK

We’ve reached the penultimate game in my rankings of the best wins of Dennis Gates’ tenure with the Missouri Tigers.

And I struggled to decide which of these final two was truly the most important and most impressive. Both are incredibly important wins from this past season.

But alas, one had to be No. 2.

No. 2: Winning the Border War

Gates had a lot of work to do to get the fanbase back on board after his 0-for in the 2023-24 SEC season.

And starting the 2024-25 season with a loss to Memphis that looked reminiscent of many games in the previous season wasn’t a great start.

But slowly, excitement was building.

Repeated home games against minor opponents ended in big wins and the Tigers showed they finally had some resilience when they came back from a huge deficit to beat Cal.

But the real test came the next weekend.

The rebirth of the Border War on the basketball court hadn’t gone the Tigers’ way. The first revival ended in a 37-point loss, the second was a 28-point loss and the third was a nine-point loss.

Missouri was getting closer, but the time was running out as the series was set to move to Kansas City in 2025-26.

But this time, the Tigers came out swinging.

After a game-opening layup on the other end, Mark Mitchell hit a  layup, Tamar Bates hit a 3 and a jumper, Mitchell hit two free throws and Ant Robinson added a jumper to build an early 11-4 lead.

The lead continued to widen as Aidan Shaw turned a steal into a dunk to make it 15-7, then a Bates 3 got the lead to double-digits at 20-10 with 10:28 left in the first half.

The Tigers built out to a 17-point lead after Shaw pulled down a rebound and Bates turned the possession into a layup to create a 34-17 advantage.

Eventually the Tigers took a 39-25 lead into halftime.

Second Half

The Tigers extended to a 24-point lead after Tony Perkins hit a jumper with 14:15 left to play, but the second half didn’t go quite as smoothly for Missouri.

The lead shrunk to 13 after a 3 with 10:15 left, then to single digits after a jumper with 9:05 to play.

It was down to 5 after a free throw with 3:20 left and all the way down to 2 with 2:20 to play.

What had been a commanding, dominant advantage was now a single possession.

But then came Mitchell.

The junior shot just 26 percent from 3 for the year, but he caught a Bates pass in the left corner and hucked up a deep attempt. He sank it to extend the lead to 5 with 2:03 left and gave the Tigers the momentum they needed to hold on to a multi-possession lead the rest of the way.

The PA announcer tried to keep the fans from storming the court. But Gates wasn’t going to let that happen.

Stats

Bates put up the performance that will lock him into the minds of Tiger fans forever with 29 points and five steals, while Mitchell had 17 points, four rebounds and three blocks. Robinson added 11 points, five steals, four rebounds and three assists, while Josh Gray still might have ended up the player of the game with 10 rebounds.

Missouri shot 23-of-52 (44.2 percent) from the field, just 4-of-13 (30.8 percent) from 3 and 26-of-31 (83.9 percent) from the free-throw line.

The Tigers forced 22 turnovers, leading to 23 points.

The energy was back, fans were excited once again and Gates was on the way to the tournament for the second time in three years.


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