Everything Coach Dennis Gates Said After Mizzou's Win Over Eastern Washington

A full transcript from the press conference for the Missouri Tigers head coach.

Nov. 8, 2024; Columbia, Missouri, USA; Missouri head coach Dennis Gates observes the game against Howard university from the sidelines. / Amber Winkler/Missouri Tigers on SI

Missouri men's basketball got its second-straight win of the season, this time over the Eastern Washington Eagles in a 84-77 contest.

Graduate guard Caleb Grill was the star of the show, dropping a career-high of 33 points on 10-of-13 shooting and 8-of-10 shooting from behind the arc. Behind him, was junior forward Mark Mitchell's 13 points on 6-of-10 shooting.

Opening Statement:

"We wanted to play teams that had opportunites to win their conference. My former teammate Shantay Legans was able to get this job at Eastern Washington years ago, his first head coaching job. He's now the head coach at Portland, and I've watched that program close, very close, very, very clos, and the success that they've had in the last, let's say, eight years has been tremendous. Now you bring in a Hall of Fame coach, the person who kick-started Gonzaga. He don't get credit for it but he kick-started Gonzaga. Tremendous team. I thought our guys did a great job responding after the 12-4 start. And it just showed our character. It showed our character top to bottom. We made some tweaks, and I thought our guys was able to execute the game plan essentially for four of 30 minutes in the second half. Like good teams, we knew they would go on a run, but again, our guys responded in a way that I thought showed character and showed growth from one game to the next to the next, and you can slowly see us going in the right direction. So I'm thankful for our crowd that showed up, showed out, and I'm thankful for a win."

On Grill's Performance:

"I benched him, he was mad at me, and he responded. It's that simple. We hugged and made up, but I benched him. Accountability is growth, and he allowed me to hold him accountable. And certain things are expected from our guys, and that shows a sign that we can go in the right direction. He didn't fight it, he accepted every, every bit of it. And I guarantee, if you ask him if you want to start now or not, he'll say he's okay. So, thanks Caleb."

On Missouri's Start and Eastern Washington's Cutting:

"I think when you make the adjustment, from a standpoint of having hot hands, making passes or operation areas a little bit difficult. We pushed their deep, their offense further out on the court. On the peremiter, we were able to get deflections. It didn't give them the same passing angles that they had in the first half. So geometrically, you take away angles. The other part of it is you take away vision. They still scored 40 points in the paint, and it's from cuts. This is one of the best cutting teams in the country, and they play well. The energy that they put in the ball by moving it around is something that we'll continue to learn from as a program. But more importantly, it put pressure on our defense from the weak side, because like Mark said, it's a lot of unique patterns. They went to a lot of post touches before their guards, and they found cutters. And whenever you have that form of initial offense, it puts pressure on the basket. I thought we did a better job of not having empty possessions. Those empty possessions meaning we get stops and then we try to make a home run play and turn it over. I thought our guys settled in, and they connected in a certain way. They didn't allow the run to frusturate them, and they grew and they grew and hey grew. I thought that was a sign of maurity. I'm just thankful for those guys to be able to talk out and also respond to a certain way that they did to close the game."

On Grill's Leadership:

"Caleb put pressure on himself, and he's been itching to get back. That's why the Memphis game went the way it went, and that's obviously why I took him out the lineup, because he didn't focus on his leadership. Once he focused on his leadership and not about success, (it) means the ball goes in the basket. That means now the ball goes in the basket, because that's not his concentration of it being the end all be all of him playing great. I thought he put a focus on the defensive end. He took the shots that his teammates created for him, and ultimately, he was in the right spot. Now, big picture, what does that mean? That means he has to grow. But also, when you look at the grace in our program, Caleb allowed his teammates to hold him accountable. He allowed his parents, and I thank his parents along the process of it, because we know how much pressure he put on himself. Mama grill, Papa grill. They did a great job. And we had conversations to make sure that he takes sort of the highlight off of just wanting to make baskets. And once he stopped thinking that way, voila, the basket grew all of a sudden, and that's just the pressure young people face. Mark Mitchell has been able to do and provide some unbelievable plays as well. I thought he did a great job getting to the foul line early. Both these guys down the stretch need to concentrate and knock down those free throws that I know that they have done consistently, and that's where that helped their run. It helped Memphis' run in the second half. It obviously helped us close the game against a tough Howard team, and then tonight, it helped us close the game, because they did step back up to make free throws."

On the performance of Washington's Andrew Cook:

"I thought he did a great job. When you look at Cook's numbers, he was a guy that made zero threes in the game previous and ended up with 20 plus points tonight. He made one three. It just shows how he's scoring. He's great at moving without the ball. His teammates are great at obviously delivering the ball on time. The other thing is, he was quick to some passing lane steals that got him a couple baskets going into the paint. But that's a great team, like I said, great coach, as we all know, and I thought that was a NCAA tournament team that we played. And obviously I'm proud of our guys showing character and growth along the way. You start the season a certain team, but then you matriculate, you get better. You see different roles change. When you see guys step up, it's going to be somebody's night. Every night. This team is unique because we have depth, and we're going to have to win by committee. The magic word is unselfishness, and that's ultimately what we have to concentrate on when it comes down to wanting to go out there and play. I thought Jacob Crews gave us unbelievable minutes defensively. He got a couple steals. His junior college teammate is Nick McClain. They both played at Daytona, but I thought Crews jumped in, made a timely three, and his energy was infectious. Those are things that we got to keep having our guys step up to do."

On Absence of Trent Pierce:

"As it relates to the minutes, I thought having either a big body, but also weak side defense was where they were killing us at and I just wanted to go with the guys. I think Marcus Allen deserved the minutes he got. I thought Jacob Crews deserved those minutes. When I start to think about the game, you have to look back at practice and certain things like that. Once I saw that he wasn't going to get in the game in that first half, just because of the rotation at that point, I kind of just focused on what I needed to focus on with the guys, and we closed the game with a certain group."

On Half-Court Offense:

"It's things we got to get better at, and it starts with me. I think when we have our next break after our Thursday game, that will be a week where we can install different things and now continue to stretch and work on execution. When games come as quick as they come, they have more time to prepare for us than we had to prepare for them. When you have that on your schedule, you have to be able to go with the things that you've worked on, versus just throwing new things at your guys. You don't want them to be paralyzed by the scouting report, and you just got to focus and fix things when the calendar allows you to fix."

On Marcus Allen and Anthony Robinson II:

"Marcus Allen and Ant Robinson are two unique players. They both are tremendous defensively. Their defensive IQ is far beyond their offensive IQ. And when we recruited them, you have to understand those are the same plays that they made, whether it was AAU eight in the morning, they always jump into the ball. Defensively, they are doing the right things, and those are the things that uniquely show up when they just try to be themselves. I thought Ant allowed the offensive end to impact them a little bit, where he took a couple fadeaways. But from a defensive perspective, those are two experienced defensive guys with high basketball IQs. I truly believe one of those two, one day, will be an SEC Defensive Player of the Year. That's how strongly I believe on their defensive end of the ball, but also, their teammates were able to get in the right spots as well. But I'm gonna watch the film, look back at the things we need to work on. I'm sure there's a lot that we're still in the infant stages of this team, but also there's a lot of room to grow and a lot of room to get better defensively and offensively."