Mizzou Coach Dennis Gates Gives 'Dead Serious' Assessment After Blowout Win vs. No. 16 Illinois
Missouri Tigers coach Dennis Gates isn't celebrating after decimating the No. 16 Illinois Fighting Illini in a 93-71 blowout Thursday night in St. Louis.
Despite Mizzou embarrassing a top-25 Illinois team that has two top-10 wins on its résumé this season, Gates was stoic and maybe even a bit harsh in his assessment of a win that saw the Tigers lead by as many as 35 at one point.
"We didn't play well. I'm dead serious," Gates said.
Sitting beside him were Kobe Brown and D'Moi Hodge, who were the team's top scorers in the win with 31 and 20 points, respectively.
Even after a huge win, they remained unfazed by their head coach's comments, a strong sign that they have bigger things in mind than securing a mid-season non-conference win.
"I don't think we played well and I'll continue to challenge my guys on executing the things we need to execute," Gates said. "For a full 40 minutes, we did not play well. I'll continue to say that."
Naturally, Illinois got its shot going in the second half after trailing 51-27 heading into the locker room. The Illini outscored Mizzou 44-42 in the final 20 minutes, though this hardly made any difference in a game that felt over in the first handful of minutes.
But it was likely the second half where Gates saw many of the mistakes that he intends to fix.
"We're obviously excited about the direction we're going," he said. "But there are small things that you may not see with the naked eye that I see that we did not execute in a great way ... I'm not gonna let them be complacent."
The tests are only going to get tougher for the Tigers, as they'll now have back-to-back top-20 matchups coming out of the Christmas holiday. Mizzou (11-1) begins SEC play against the No. 19 Kentucky Wildcats at home on Wednesday before traveling to Fayetteville to take on the No. 10 Arkansas Razorbacks.
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