Vahe Gregorian: Missouri basketball has repaved foundation, but low ceiling still hangs over program

Vahe Gregorian, The Kansas City Star on Mar 22, 2026

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ST. LOUIS — Selection Sunday delivered Missouri a fine turn of fortune, you might recall:

First, it wasn’t relegated to playing in a First Four/play-in game in Dayton, Ohio, as it appeared could happen. Beyond that, the Tigers also were somehow sent to St. Louis with what figured to be a substantial home-court advantage against Miami — despite the fact Mizzou was seeded 10th and Miami seventh in the NCAA Tournament West Regional.

Stir in motivation for redemption from a first-round NCAA tourney loss last season, and being dissected 91-48 by Illinois when last they played here at the Enterprise Center in December, and everything seemed aligned for a breakthrough.

Especially when senior star Mark Mitchell hit a 3-pointer with 7 minutes, 50 seconds left to give MU a 54-52 lead and compel a Miami timeout as the crowd thundered.

In that fleeting moment, guard Anthony Robinson would say later, the game felt right there. Meaning in Mizzou’s grasp.

But then it oozed right through with an 11-0 Miami run, bookended around what appeared to be a pivotal missed Miami foul on Mitchell, and Mizzou wilted in the final minutes to fall 80-66.

The defeat at least lent clarity to a perplexing season for Mizzou, which beat three ranked teams, including Florida, a No. 1 seed in the tournament, but lost its last four games to leave head coach Dennis Gates 1-3 in NCAA play at MU — and a jarring 1-13 in March over the last three seasons.

Strange but true, Mizzou now is 0-3 in NCAA Tournament games played in the state of Missouri. Having also lost in 1944 in Kansas City and 1982 here, the Tigers, in fact, have won more NCAA games in Lawrence, Kan.(1976), than in their home state.

So while it appears Gates has repaved the foundation at Mizzou with three NCAA Tournament berths in his four seasons, the ceiling that’s hovered over the program the last 16 years remains fastened down.

The defeat marked Mizzou’s seventh first-round loss in its last eight NCAA appearances and its ninth loss in its last 10 NCAA games since beating Clemson in a 2010 first-round game.

That was four coaches ago, and Gates seems attuned to some grumbling about how this one is faring.

“I’m sure there will be certain headlines, there will be certain tweets and certain voices out there saying that we failed,” he said. “My guys haven’t failed anything. …

“If you want to say something about failing, say ‘Dennis Gates failed.’ I’ll take it any day of the week, with no hesitation.”

Then again …

Asked how he’ll remember the season, Gates said both that he is hard on himself but that “I don’t think any coach could have brought the team to this place based off of where we were, dealing with the injuries that we dealt with. So I pat myself on the back at the same time.”

He added, “I want to win a national championship, and I didn’t. So for me that’s a failure. It’s just that simple.”

Got all that?

In fact, nothing about it is simple:

While it was a curious way to sum it up and no doubt exasperating to many MU fans, Gates seems to be cultivating a program that could soon flourish.

For all the frustration of yet another NCAA dud for Mizzou, which has been knocked out in the first round in 18 of its 31 appearances, Gates has assembled the nation’s top-ranked recruiting class for next season.

And he has achieved a certain level of traction with the program going 10-8 in Southeastern Conference play each of the last two seasons.

That makes for MU’s first back-to-back winning conference seasons since joining the SEC in 2012, and this season marks the first time Mizzou has secured consecutive NCAA tourney berths since going to five in a row from 2009-2013.

All well and good, and of course it bears mention that Gates in his first season led MU from 12 wins to 25 and its only NCAA win (over Utah State) since it joined the SEC.

But that was supposed to be a start, not the pinnacle to date.

And none of that changes the fact that this season became an anticlimactic letdown — and still leaves you wondering what it will take for Mizzou to make a leap toward being a factor in March.

Particularly given this squandering of a prime opportunity in St. Louis and the circumstances of the opponent: In its first season under Jai Lucas, a former Duke assistant coach, Miami went from 7-24 a season ago to 26-8 — a 19-game swing that ties a Division I record.

Instead of just being happy to be here, though, Miami was intent on making the most of it. The Hurricanes were a step quicker much of the night, and it tangibly showed up on the boards as they outrebounded MU 46-30 and had a 19-2 advantage in second-chance points.

They also largely stymied Mitchell, who finished with 19 points but was coming off back-to-back 32-point efforts.

“They built a wall that made it hard for me most of the game,” said Mitchell, the Kansas City, Kan., native who played his final game for the Tigers.

And they reinforced the wall that Mizzou so rarely can get past in March — even when it gets the benefit of what essentially was a home game and had everything to play for.

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