Mizzou Basketball Associate Head Coach C.Y. Young Previews the 2024-'25 Season

A conversation with Missouri Tigers men's basketball associate head coach C.Y. Young ahead of the season.

Feb 14, 2023; Auburn, Alabama, USA; Missouri Tigers associate head coach Charlton Young reacts to a play during the first half of a game against the Auburn Tigers at Neville Arena. Mandatory Credit: Julie Bennett-Imagn Images / Julie Bennett-Imagn Images

The Missouri Tigers will begin their 2024-'25 season Monday, Nov. 4 in a game at Memphis.

It will be the 29th season for Missouri associate head coach C.Y. Young, who started his coaching career with Auburn in 1996. He and Dennis Gates crossed paths at Florida State under Leonard Hamilton. Young was a member of Gates' first coaching staff with the Tigers.

Here's the full Q&A of a conversation MissouriOnSI had with Young at the team's media day in early October.

Q: What excites you about the team this season?

Really excited about girth, just the physicality of our team. The SEC is a very, very physical league. And so if you got a bunch of guys who can't hold their spot, kind of struggle in how skilled you are. So with the addition of Peyton Marshall and Josh Gray, Annor Boateng, really big bodies, we got some girth. And then we got four guys that are flammable: (Tamar) Bates, (Caleb) Grill, (Jacob) Crews, (Marques) Warrick, they all really, really shoot it

Q: How much do those “flammable” guys make your team more dynamic?

We got four guys that can hit seven, eight 3’s, on any given night. We got to pray that Grill stays healthy. If he could stay healthy, we really got the chance to make a run. 

Just excited about the girth, the shooting and the depth. I think Ant(hony) Robinson has made a big jump. I think Tamar Bates has made a big jump. Grill has made a big jump. Then we got the freshman class that’s rated third in the country. We got the portal class that was rated ninth or 13th in the country.

So we got the right combination of youth, and then the old heads that can kind of lead them, which in college basketball you need.

Q: What do you make of the character of this team? 

I think having the right combination of older guys and younger guys is very important. We got some older guys in that portal class: Josh Gray, Warrick, Tony Perkins. These guys been around the block. So these talented freshmen, they see how inexperienced they are when they play against those older guys in practice. So now the older guys, they know, ‘Okay, we need these young talented guys,’ right? And these young talented guys, they see, ‘I need Mark Mitchell to mentor me. I mean, Mark Mitchell's been in a couple wars. He can help me.’ So I think having the right combination of youth and older guys has been great for the program.

Q: How does the staff develop young talent, even if they aren’t seeing playing time?

Each guy has an individual player development plan, and we work around the clock improving their game. I think those guys that we've got is, high character, from great families who understand that it's going to be a process for those young guys. 

Everybody want to make progress. Nobody wants to go through the process. And the young guys, they're in the process, and that's okay. Whether it’s going to be one, two, three or four years.

Q: How difficult is it to find players willing to be patient in the age of the transfer portal?

You got to get high character gym rats, and you got to get a certain disposition, but you also got to build a relationship with them and their families and be honest with them. I think he's (Gates) the best at that. Dennis Gates in terms of identifying the right talent, the right disposition, the right families, but also building the relationship with the families where they understand open line of communication. Here's where he is, here's where we gonna take them, how long that's gonna take, that's on him. And I think when you build a relationship with the family, and you have a tremendous amount of honesty from the beginning, then that's not an issue.

Read more Missouri Tigers news:

'What Our Bond Should Be': Dennis Gates Sets Two Missouri Guards Relationship as the Standard
What Missouri Basketball is Getting in 4-Star Forward Nicholas Randall
How to Watch: Missouri Men's Basketball Season-Opener at Memphis