Before the Missouri Tigers face Miami in the NCAA Tournament, the fraternity of basketball has already tremendously connected the two programs.
Both giant “M” programs are led by two Black head coaches under 50 years old in No. 10 seed Mizzou’s Dennis Gates and No. 7 seed Miami’s Jai Lucas. Gates is also a disciple of longtime head coach Leonard Hamilton, who spent 1990 to 2000 with Miami and led the Hurricanes to a Sweet Sixteen.
Former Mizzou assistant Charlton Young joined Lucas’ staff before the season. Mizzou guard Anthony Robinson and Miami guard Tre Donaldson were teammates at Florida State University High in Tallahassee.
Gates began his comments on Sunday acknowledging Miami sophomore guard Marcus Allen, who spent his freshman year in Columbia and is currently battling non-Hodgkin Lymphoma.
“This game is a different game for us,” Gates said.
Lucas, a former assistant at Texas, Kentucky, and Duke, led the Hurricanes to a third-place finish in the ACC with a 25-8 overall record, 13-5 in conference play. They reached the conference tournament semifinals.
Gates has known the Lucas family for years.
“One of the top coaches in the country, obviously, representing the ACC and what he’s been able to do at Miami is definitely an accomplishment in itself,” Gates said. “Going to be a battle, and one of those situations and games that we’re excited to play.”
And one more connection: Mizzou fans who pay attention to the team on the other side of the Border War may recognize former Kansas big man Ernest Udeh.
Udeh, a senior center, is averaging 7.0 points and 9.3 rebounds a game in his lone season with the Hurricanes.
On paper, the Hurricanes were rated higher than the Tigers.
Missouri was the 39th overall seed; Miami was 27th overall. The Tigers are one of 10 SEC teams to make the Big Dance, the most of any conference. The ACC was third with eight bids.
But Mizzou could have a home-court advantage. The first two rounds for the Tigers will be in St. Louis at Enterprise Center, only 126 miles from campus.
Gates isn’t necessarily counting on that though.
“Everybody has had road games, everyone has had neutral-site games, everyone has traveled. So it’s going to be a game that both teams will show up. And for us, we’ve just got to make sure that we don’t have those self inflictions and things like that,” he said.
The winner of Mizzou-Miami faces the winner of No. 2-seeded Purdue and 15-seeded Queens in the West Regional.
Among other teams playing in St. Louis over the weekend are No. 7 seed Kentucky vs. No. 10 seed Santa Clara and No. 2 seed Iowa State vs. No. 15 seed Tennessee State in the Midwest Regional.
Matchup-wise, Miami has four double-digit scorers, led by first-team all-conference 6-9 forward Malik Reneau (18.8 points per game, 6.6 rebounds per game) and All-ACC second-team point guard Tre Donaldson (16.5 ppg, 5.8 assists per game).
Lucas turned around a team that won seven games last year. This season, they had the 33rd-best offensive rating (121.4) and 38th-best defensive rating (100.7), according to KenPom.
This will be Mizzou’s third trip to the Big Dance in four years under Gates, still working to get past the first two rounds. He knows anything can happen in the tournament, where records no longer matter.
“Sure, you’ve got some rankings and seeds. It does not matter, because that’s what March Madness is about,” Gates said. “I hope they expand it one day, because there’s a lot of teams that I think should and deserve to be in.”
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PJ Green is a breaking news reporter for The Star. He previously was a sports reporter for Fox’s Kansas City affiliate and a news reporter for NBC’s Wichita Falls, Texas affiliate. He studied English with a concentration in journalism and played football at Tusculum University. You can reach him at pgreen@kcstar.com or follow him on Twitter and Bluesky – @ByPJGreen