'Don't Bleep that Out'; Dennis Gates Drops F-Bomb in Frustrating Press Conference
COLUMBIA, Mo. — Mizzou basketball coach Dennis Gates ends most of his post-game press conferences with the "M-I-Z" callback. On Tuesday night though, that was replaced with a reminder to "make sure you guys don't bleep that out."
The second-year head coach wanted to make sure any media members wouldn't add any confusion to the words he used in an answer earlier about Mizzou's struggles with drawing fouls.
"We gotta do a better job drawing fouls," Gates said. "I think we suck at it. We’re fu**ing terrible — we’re terrible at drawing fouls, and we got to do a better job."
Sorry, Dennis. That would be against our standards and ethics agreement.
Gates' frustrations are reasonable for his team that, after Tuesday night's 72-67 loss to No. 5 Tennessee, is 0-13 in SEC play. The Volunteers had 27 free-throw shots compared to 21 for the Tigers.
The Tigers are the second best team in the SEC with free throw percentage. The problem is simply getting to the line on a consistent basis.
In Missouri's loss to Ole Miss on Saturday, Gates continuously highlighted the difference in free-throw opportunities as the main reason his team fell short. When asked what the solution was, he became pretty imaginative.
"I need to have a whistle and not call the fouls," Gates said. "That's what I think is the best remedy for it, they drew fouls. I can't predict that. That that's the referees discretion on what they think is a foul or not."
Gates has kept a calm demeanor through most of his time at Missouri, including this unprecedented start to conference play. It seemed like he was just a ticking time bomb that finally exploded on Tuesday night.
