Missouri extends mens basketball coach Dennis Gates through 2028-29: Why it was well-deserved

Missouri signed men’s basketball coach Dennis Gates to a contract extension through the 2028-29 season, the school announced Friday. Here’s what you need to know:
- Gates’ salary will increase to $4 million in 2023-24 with additional $100,000 increases every season throughout the remainder of the deal. His original contract ran through 2027-28.
- Gates led the Tigers to a 24-8 record in his first season helming the program.
- No. 25 Missouri is set to take on No. 4 Alabama in the SEC tournament semifinals on Saturday.
Adding to our wins today, we have extended @coachdgates' contract!
📰 https://t.co/t9nh5Ccxej#MIZ 🐯 pic.twitter.com/8AcYFtV14R
— Mizzou Hoops (@MizzouHoops) March 11, 2023
Backstory
Missouri’s program underwent a massive transformation under the first-year head coach, who has already guided the team to 24 wins for the first time since 2011-12. Last season, the Tigers finished 12-21 before firing Cuonzo Martin.
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Before being hired last spring, Gates spent three seasons at Cleveland State, compiling a 50-40 overall record and guiding the Vikings to back-to-back regular-season titles.
A well-deserved extension
This is an early extension that is both well-deserved and well-timed. It’s hard to engineer a bigger Year 1 turnaround with as many new pieces — in a conference like the SEC, no less — than Gates just did. After a 79-71 win over Tennessee on Friday to reach the league semifinals against Alabama, Missouri has gone from a 21-loss team under Martin last year to a 24-win team under Gates.
Nobody handed him this roster. Yes, he inherited star senior Kobe Brown, but the Tigers’ other six top players are transfers from Clemson, Cleveland State, Milwaukee, Northern Iowa, Missouri State and Bradley. That random collection of parts quickly came together to form the SEC’s top-rated offense and a team good enough to blow out Illinois and Kentucky, beat Arkansas and Iowa State, win at Tennessee and then repeat that feat against the Vols on Friday in Nashville. — Tucker
‘I knew what he was capable of’
Now they’re NCAA Tournament-bound, which nobody outside that locker room would’ve predicted in the preseason. The media picked Missouri to finish 11th out of 14 SEC teams. It was wise not to wait to lock up Gates for the long term before somebody else inevitably comes calling. Just listen to how his players talked about him after Friday’s victory.
“I knew what he was capable of,” said D’Moi Hodge, who followed Gates from Cleveland State, where he inherited another 21-loss team and won a share of the Horizon League title in Years 2 and 3. “I knew once the team bought into what he had to offer, we’d be a dangerous team. I was telling my teammates, ‘We good, man. He knows what he’s doing.’ I never question Coach Gates. If he does something, it’s for the bigger good. You won’t see it right away, but he always sees the bigger picture. So I never question his judgment. He’s going to get you right.”
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Ask Nick Honor when he believed this new coach would work out and you’ll get an unexpected answer.
“The Kansas game,” he said, referencing a 28-point home loss to the rival Jayhawks on Dec. 10. “You learn a lot more through the losses. The way we prepped after that and kind of got our minds right and humbled us. One thing about Coach: He’s never going to freak out. A lot of coaches lose like that and they’ll start changing up everything, but he just stayed constant. You could see he had a plan, and he’s executing it now. I’m glad Coach Gates is doing his thing.” — Tucker
What else they’re saying
“When he came here, Dennis Gates talked about building a championship culture, and he is doing just that,” Missouri Board of Curators chair Michael Williams said in a release Friday. “He is an individual with high standards and a clear vision for our student-athletes. It has been an exceptional season, and the Board is very excited to witness our program build on this success.”
Required reading
(Photo: Jeff Curry / USA Today)
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