RE: 4-4…5-4 should be minimum expected

Posted on: June 7, 2023 at 07:37:08 CT

Coaches finishing their time at Mizzou with a .500 or better conference record has proven extremely difficult, in both football and the other sports. Since 1960, only 3 football coaches have managed to do it: Devine, Powers & Pinkel. If you are averaging 4-4 or 5-4, you have some 5 to 9 win conference yrs too (and some 0 to 3 win yrs). So if a coach leaves MU with simply a .500 record, they accomplished something few have done at MU.

Gates was the only one of 7 MU team coaches to finish above .500 in SEC competition in 22-23. Gates (short timeframe) and Larissa Anderson are the only 2 coaches that are overall .500 or better, in league, among MU team coaches right now. And Anderson is right at .500 after 5 yrs and she may very well join the rest next year.

It may seem like not much but Gates going 11-7 was frankly a lot more impressive than it sounds. I think when I looked, only Norm, CMA & Haith (granted shorter time frame), finished their MU time above .500 in league play in MBB. Hope Gates can stay in the black.

Moral of the story, it’s a stat to track to judge a coach’s MU greatness.

Edited by slamduncan at 07:42:35 on 06/07/23