How and why Mizzou basketball coach Dennis Gates became one of nation’s top recruiters

Mabor Majak is from the war-torn chaos of South Sudan. He hasn’t seen his family in person since he arrived in Indiana eight years ago. That’s another story for another time, but it helps explain the significance of this:

Virtually since then-Cleveland State coach Dennis Gates began to recruit the 7-foot-2 center, Majak has considered Gates a father figure. Accordingly, Gates typically starts his office conversations with Majak by asking, “How can I help? What do you need?”

“That kind of stuff goes a long way,” Majak, who last year followed Gates to Missouri, said Monday at Mizzou’s preseason media day. “He’s been true to what he says in everything he does.”

While that’s only one young man’s story, with all its unique elements, the snapshot speaks to something more.

It’s a telling glimpse into what enabled Gates to make an instant impact last season for Mizzou, whisking the Tigers to their first NCAA Tournament victory since 2010 with a team whose chemistry and trust was almost tangible.

And it reflects why that breakthrough figures to be merely a first step for the program — and the coach who has assembled a 2024 recruiting class rated the best in the nation by 247Sports.

“A way that’s really different”

Assistant coach Dickey Nutt likes to call Gates “The Chosen One” for a certain general brilliance, including strategically. He believes Gates, 43, has major traits comparable to another man Nutt once worked with: Kansas coach Bill Self, who has guided his KU teams to two national titles and in 2017 was inducted in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

What compels young men to choose The Chosen One is essential in Gates’ trajectory toward his oft-stated ambitions to be a Hall of Fame coach, cut down nets, hold up trophies and raise banners.

“Noah’s Ark” is the name of senior forward Noah Carter’s boat, in which Gates and Carter have bonded over a shared love of fishing that was part of Carter’s recruitment.

But it also could be an apt nickname for the diverse and far-flung cast Gates has assembled.

Name the walk of life or background or part of the country or even world, the ethnicity, religion or skin color, and Gates, rather uncannily, seems to know how to connect in substantial and resonant ways. That capacity was part of why athletic director Desiree Reed-Francois turned last year to Gates, who was known for having been a vital part of putting together four straight top-15 recruiting classes as a Florida State assistant.

“He really just takes the time to learn about our world and then finds that connective point,” said senior guard Nick Honor, a Clemson transfer. “College coaches I’ve come across, they don’t really do stuff like that.”

You could have asked about anyone from anywhere in the Mizzou practice gym on Monday, and the common theme would be Gates’ knack for meeting them where they are … wherever that may be.

Aidan Shaw, a sophomore forward from Blue Valley, reflected on how quickly Gates hit it off with his extended family — and said they now see him “as an extension of our family.”

On the other end of the recruiting spectrum was Connor Vanover, who played at Oral Roberts last season — his third school in four years. Initially, Vanover felt ready to be done with college. He also was contending with personal struggles about which he declined to elaborate.

From the “bad place” he was in, though, the 7-5 center saw light going forward through Gates after Nutt had reached out; he joined a recruiting class ranked 31st by On3.

Gates said “we really want to help you,” Vanover said ... and has.

In basketball, sure, but also by being what Vanover called “protective” and “really kind and considerate” and being “sensitive to me as a person and things that I deal with in my life, being 7-5. Not everybody deals with that type of stuff.”

He added, “He really cares about all the players in a way that’s really different.”

“Transformational, not transactional”

While Gates grew up in Chicago, under circumstances in which he’ll tell you his coaches literally saved his life, he also was an excellent student while playing basketball at the University of California, Berkeley, and has the presence of a citizen of the world comfortable in any environment.

He also is equipped with the internal universal translators of emotional intelligence and empathy that seem to rivet recruits.

And quite importantly, his players past and current will tell you, that’s who he remains when all the recruiting hoopla fades into the day-to-day routine and grind.

What might be considered a holistic approach is easy to preach but challenging to make a reality.

Many coaches say similar sorts of things about cultivating a family atmosphere. From some, it’s hollow.

So it’s all in the delivery, and the testimonials seem endless when it comes to Gates.

When I asked him a few questions the other day about the ways that so strike his players, he began by saying, “This is personal for me. I believe my path is far beyond what you may think.”

He wants to be invited to their weddings, a phrase he uses often, and he wants them to “call me when a transition in life takes place, when their back is against the wall, when they’re seeking some advice.”

In short, like the way he still views all the coaches in his own life.

Those are names he rattles off nearly as frequently as he speaks of his eight core values (friendship, love, accountability, trust, discipline, unselfishness, enthusiasm and toughness), and they’re names he made a point of calling one by one when I spent a few hours in his office in the summer of 2022.

As for how he conveys his message?

“I make sure it’s transformational, not transactional,” he said, smiling and adding, “I tell them I love them, and sometimes it makes them uncomfortable. But I don’t care how uncomfortable they get: I’m going to hug them.

“Not only hug them, I’m going to hold them while I’m hugging them. And … I let them know I may need a hug today. It’s not just about them. I want them to be empowered to understand that I have feelings, they have feelings, and their impact on me is just as great as my impact is on them.”

It’s one thing to demonstrate that once they’re in his program. But that’s a lot to get across in someone’s living room or on a Zoom or phone call the first time they meet during recruiting.

While there’s much more to the dynamics, Gates said his approach is built on authenticity and transparency. He typically doesn’t talk much about basketball and likes to share why he and his family chose MU and Columbia.

Maybe more than anything else, he strives to get this across to the recruit and his family:

“They’re not just going to be a guy with a number,” he said. “They’re going to be a person who is going to be in my family circle (with) me in their family circle as well.”

“An aura … that told me he was who he said he was”

Eloquently as Gates states his points, those would be mere platitudes without proof over time.

But the evidence was ample during the NCAA Tournament last spring in Sacramento, where I spoke with a number of players about what had struck them about Gates during the recruiting process and since.

Maybe what stuck out the most then were the words of guard DeAndre Gholston.

“He had an aura or something about him that told me he was who he said he was,” said Gholston, who hailed from Gary, Indiana, and transferred from Milwaukee.

Noting that everything Gates had told him has come true, he said, “I thank him and honestly love him for it.”

So that seems to be in every grain of sand when it comes to Gates — as meticulously verified by new Tiger Tamar Bates.

Bates is from Kansas City, Kansas, played his final year of high school at IMG Academy in Florida and originally committed to Texas before spending his freshman and sophomore years at Indiana.

Safe to say he was well-versed in the elements of recruiting when he entered the transfer portal.

“So I know kind of all the tactics and what coaches do and what they say to get guys to their schools,” he said Monday.

For this momentous decision, he made numerous calls to vet Gates — including to former and current MU players — and to check out other coaches vying for him. He sought out red flags.

“I know a lot of people who were in the portal,” he said. “So it’s like, if you’re calling me and 10 other dudes and telling them the same thing as me, it’s like, what are we doing?”

At Mizzou, he found no red flags and a green light in Gates, who was attuned to both his aspirations as a player and needs as the father of 1-year-old Leilani.

(She’s already a champion after winning a baby crawl race — crying all the way — in January at Assembly Hall.)

Gates, he said, is “just a real, like, genuine man. Somebody that I can really relate to.”

And somebody whose appealing way suggests he’s indeed on a path far beyond what you may think.