December brings tougher opponents to the Mizzou men’s rings

COLUMBIA, Mo. – The December start means more competitive basketball is on the way for Missouri after a slow increase in losses early in the season.

“The month of December is a different month than November,” MU coach Dennis Gates said Monday, not just referring to a different picture on his wall calendar.

The Tigers face their first power conference opponent of the season, which represents the biggest test of the 2024-25 season since the opener against Memphis. First up is California on Tuesday at 6 p.m.

Mizzou (6-1) will host the Golden Bears (6-1) in the Southeastern Conference-Atlantic Coast Conference Challenge — yes, the Berkeley, Calif., school is now in the ACC.

Cal landed at No. 78 in the NCAA’s first NET ranking drop of the season, a metric that largely evaluates programs’ resumes. Missouri was ranked 46th.

So there will be more quality on the floor at Mizzou Arena on Tuesday, but one of the intriguing parts of the game will be Gates practicing against his alma mater. Between 1998 and 2002, he played 114 games for the Golden Bears, starting 34 of them as a 6-3 guard.

Gates downplayed the impact of his personal connection to MU’s upcoming opponent. When ESPN, the SEC and the ACC programmed this year’s series, he said he expected Missouri to be paired with Cal or Florida State, where Gates earned a master’s degree while coaching for Leonard Hamilton, his mentor. Either would have been a reunion of sorts for Mizzou’s third-year coach.

“Whatever the storyline is, it will still make for a good game,” Gates said. “It’s not about what I’ve done in my career. It’s about our players.”

Speaking of players, the Tigers won’t have a key player against the Bears. Guard Caleb Grill is out with a neck injury he suffered last week against Lindenwood.

The incident became quite a frightening scene at Mizzou Arena. Grill suffered a blow to the head and fell to the ground, where he lay for several minutes before being lifted off the ground on a stretcher and taken to nearby University Hospital. Scans revealed no serious injuries and Grill was released that night.

He had watched the rest of the game on his cell phone during his hospital stay and called Gates around 2 a.m. after receiving permission to leave the hospital.

“Coach, we’re ready to go,” Gates recalled his veteran guard saying. “I sit here and jog in place.”

Although Grill felt fine, the team is opting to keep him out of Tuesday’s contest as a precaution. Gates said he thinks about Grill day by day, suggesting his status for Sunday’s game against No. 1 Kansas could go either way.

With Grill out, Mizzou will turn to Marques Warrick, Jacob Crews and Annor Boateng as wingers to replace Grill’s shooting and rebounding abilities. Boateng is usually in the starting lineup before being substituted for Grill, so this aspect is unlikely to change significantly.

“I think these three guys need to continue to move forward in their own way without trying to be Caleb Grill,” Gates said, “and we’ll do well, I think, on the committee.”

The Tigers face a wavering team in December when it comes to the quality of opponents. There are power conference opponents in Cal, KU and Illinois, but there are even more buy games in between against the likes of Long Island, Jacksonville State and Alabama State.

“We don’t analyze the whole month,” Gates said. “But as a head coach, I see in our planning now a higher level of NET and then a decrease in NET, a higher level of NET, a decrease in NET.”

In his eyes, success will come from minimizing differences in playing style amid waves of opponent quality.

“I want our guys to be consistent and not challenge the front of the jersey, but challenge our identity,” Gates said. “That’s how I measure December.”