Cal Basketball: From Berkeley to Cleveland, Dennis Gates Back in the NCAA Tourney

Ben Braun has a long list of favorite stories about Dennis Gates, who played for him at Cal. One of his favorites illustrates a rare leadership quality Gates displayed even as a college player.

The Bears were playing at the Coliseum and Braun went to put Gates in to shoot a free throw after a Cal player was injured. “Coach, don’t put me in,” Gates told him. “Put Ryan Forehan-Kelly in — he’s our best free throw shooter.”

“Dennis was coaching then,” said Braun, who discusses Gates further in the video above.

Foreman-Kelly made both shots and Cal won. “I gave Dennis a fist bump after the game. I said, `That’s pretty big. Most guys would have wanted to get in the game.’ “

Instead, Gates chose the option that gave his team the best chance to win. “That’s leadership,” Braun said.

Two decades later, Braun isn’t the least bit surprised that Gates is having high-level success as coach of his own program. Now 41 and in his second season at Cleveland State, Gates led the Vikings to a 19-7 and regular season and tournament titles in the Horizon League.

Cleveland State will be part of Selection Sunday this afternoon, given its assignment in its first NCAA Tournament berth in 12 seasons, just the third in program history.

Another ex-Golden Bear, Shantay Legans, 39, has achieved the same distinction as coach at Eastern Washington. His Eagles (16-7) won the Big Sky Conference title with a 65-55 victory over Montana State on Saturday and also will play in the NCAAs for just the third time.

The two former Cal guards were teammates in 2001 and ’02 — Legans’ first two years on campus, Gates’ final two — and they made it to the NCAAs together both seasons. Now both get to experience it in charge of their own programs. “It’s a special feeling,” Braun said.

Gates won an Illinois state championship as a senior in high school and played on teams that were 83-48 at Cal, with three 20-win seasons. A defensive specialist, Gates averaged 5.6 points as a senior in 2002, when the Bears reached the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament.

“You look for qualities in a winner,” Braun said. “Do you compete? Do you hang your head if things aren’t going your way? Do you get your teammates going? Do you do things to sacrifice to help your team? Dennis checked all the boxes.”

David Carter felt the same way about Gates while working with him at Nevada in 2010 and ’11. Carter, the one-time Saint Mary’s College point guard, was in his first two seasons as a head coach and said Gates’ ambition made him a great assistant.

“Those guys make unbelievable assistant coaches because they want to get in the chair that you’re in. They’re doing everything they can to make you successful,” said Carter, now an assistant at Loyola Marymount.

Carter was watching on TV when Cleveland State won the Horizon title on Tuesday night, and Gates’ low-key post-game reaction didn’t surprise him in the least.

“The kids are celebrating and Gates is so serious,” Carter said. “I’m like, `Dennis, would you smile. The game’s over!’ “

Braun confirms Gates is all business all the time. But he also believes his former player embraced the championship moment . . . in his own way. “I sense the joy . . . I think he’s really relieved and and excited and elated at the same time.”

Legans was part of the same Cal recruiting class as Joe Shipp and Brian Wethers and averaged 9.0 points and 4.1 assists in three seasons before transferring to Fresno State for his senior year.

He and Eastern Washington have been knocking on the postseason door for several years. The Eagles are 74-48 in Legans' four seasons, lost in the Big Sky title game in 2018 and ’19, and last season were regular-season champs before the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out the conference tournament.

Meanwhile, few expected Gates to engineer such a quick turnaround at Cleveland State after spending seven seasons as an assistant at Florida State under highly respected coach Leonard Hamilton.

The Vikings went 11-21 in Gates’ first season, then suffered an incomprehensible loss in the second game this year, allowing Ohio a 40-0 run — an NCAA record for a game involving two Division I teams — in a 101-46 defeat.

Carter talked to his former aide on the phone a couple days later and reminded him, “If you finish well, nobody will remember this game.”

“He doesn’t run away from a challenge,” Braun said.

After an 0-3 start, Cleveland State won 19 of its past 23 games. The Vikings survived a 108-104 triple-overtime game against Purdue Fort Wayne in the quarterfinals of the Horizon tournament then clinched the title Tuesday by beating Oakland 80-69.

“He’s done everything we’ve hoped for and so much more,” CSU athletic director Scott Garrett told the Cleveland Plain Dealer, alluding to the fact that the Vikings have a 3.3 grade-point average in two seasons under Gates.

Keeping Gates in Cleveland after this season may be challenging. He earns somewhere around $300,000 and could be on the wish lists of a couple schools that are much bigger — and richer.

Penn State is in the market for a coach and Nittany Lions athletic director Sandy Barbour spent a decade at Cal, albeit arriving two years after Gates graduated.

Boston College is another possibility and comes with a unique caveat. Gates’ wife, Jocelyn, is the senior associate AD and senior women’s administrator for the Eagles.

“Our goal is to keep coach,” Garrett said. “We will talk about that after the season. But right now, it’s exciting to see where we are and how far we’ve come.

“I knew we’d be better than last season, but I never imagined this would happen so soon.”

Cover photo of Dennis Gates courtesy of Cleveland State Athletics

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo