Dennis Gates issues public challenge to Anthony Robinson

Missouri coach Dennis Gates had a message he wanted Anthony Robinson to hear. So with the Tigers guard sitting to his right in Saturday’s postgame press conference following a win against Vanderbilt, Gates delivered it.

Robinson finished the game a perfect 4-of-4 from the field to score 15 points and also dished out a team-high eight assists. But he also went just 5-of-9 from the free throw line, and Gates told reporters he could see the frustration on Robinson’s face.

He challenged the sophomore to try not to be so hard on himself when he makes a mistake in the game, encouraging him to just move on to the next play.

“I’ll say this, and this is a public challenge to Ant Robinson,” Gates said. “Because I’m gonna call his mom after this and tell her the same thing. Ant’s growth has been great, right? Everybody sees it. Everybody can document it. You can see the clips. Ant’s next stage of growth is ignoring his mistakes. His missed free throws, because he makes it so visible and then that distracts him from executing the next game plan. I think he could have played 10 times better in the last four minutes, but after those two missed free throws, you visibly saw his upset or anger or just the negative thought.

“You gotta look past the negative and I’m gonna call his mom and set up a meeting and continue to talk to him about the same thing. Because he’s valuable, but how can you be valuable if you’re concentrating on the mistakes? So in essence, I’ve been working with Ant on this. You’ve gotta recover from the mistakes and ultimately that’s what will allow him to continue to grow in the direction he’s going in.”

Robinson is in his second season with the Tigers and has moved into a starting role after coming off the bench for all 31 games as a freshman in 2023-24. He has taken a big step forward this year to average 10.6 points and 4.0 assists while shooting 50% from the floor.

Missouri has gotten off to a solid start to the season, sitting at 13-3 (2-1 SEC) with a victory against Kansas. Robinson has been a big part of that, and Gates is now trying to help him take the next step to be even better.

The Tigers next face No. 8 Florida on the road Tuesday in what will be a pivotal chance for the guard to do so.