What Missouri coach Dennis Gates said before facing No. 4 Tennessee

What head coach Dennis Gates said on Tuesday before No. 15 Missouri (17-4, 6-2 SEC) faces No. 4 Tennessee (18-4, 5-4) on Wednesday (7 p.m. Eastern Time, SEC Network) at Food City Center in Knoxville:

Opening Statement

“Another week of SEC basketball. Our group is definitely excited to get back on the court. I think when you look at the overall competition, you have a lot of great teams that are playing well. At the end of the day, one team has to win, one team has to lose. So that does not mean that teams are not doing great or doing the things that they need to do. We’re thankful to be on our side, and again, our fans have done a great job throughout this season and we want to continue to trend in the right direction.”

Missouri’s 88-61 win at Mississippi State on Saturday 

“The ceiling of our team has not been reached yet. I truly believe that there’s another level or two that we can go to. I’ve mentioned it before in the past, and sometimes you guys think I am just making statements, but I really do mean that. Because I base it off the potential that I see every day in practice, but also the group of men that we have in our locker room, they’ve done a tremendous job over their careers. But also in this short time since June of our gathering where we started working on team building. So when it comes down to our potential, we have not yet reached it.” 

What Missouri needs to do to keep winning SEC games

“Well, there’s a lot of great coaches in this conference. There’s a lot of great players. You have no choice, when we began the SEC season, to look at the top 16 strength of schedules remaining, it was in order all SEC teams. So when you have that type of scheduling, you have no choice but to get better. Because these situations that come up — end of game, close games, end of halves — and also the environments, they allow that to take place. Again, players are going to continue to play, coaches are going to coach. And I think the combination of all that in one conference allows us to continue to improve each other by way of sharpening each other’s blades, so to speak. There’s different styles of play that exist in our conference, and I just think every staff, every coach, every single player, by product of that, will get better because everyone’s going out giving their very best.” 

The challenge facing this Tennessee team, getting to the foul line against a defense that does’t foul very much

“Well, Rick Barnes is a great coach, Hall of Fame coach, obviously. (This is) one of his better teams, no different than majority of our opponents. Last season for Tennessee ended prematurely for them. I thought they had a national championship team, leave no doubt about it. And they still have a great team. They’ve been No. 1 in the country by the Coaches Poll and AP Poll. They’ve been top five consistently. And that’s the barometer when you look at where, where they have been respected, they have great players top to bottom. 

“That doesn’t mean they don’t foul. They just do a great job of doing the things that they do well. They are No. 1 in rim protection. They’re No. 1 in a lot of categories defensively. And they’re going to do a great job. That environment is going to be a tough environment to play in. And it is my job to get our guys prepared.” 

Preparing to face Tennessee after Zakai Zeigler and Igor Milicic missed the Florida game on Saturday 

“Well, we don’t worry about other teams when it comes to who’s not going to play. We assume everybody’s is going to play, regardless of their injury, regardless of what’s going on. We always prepare our guys regardless of an injury, that this is their rotation, this is their team. And when you decide to not play — sometimes that’s a game-time decision, sometimes it’s the day before — our players, as soon as we start our scouting report, we’re at 100% participation when it comes to our opponents, who’s going to play.

“Now, how many minutes people play, sometimes it’s zero, sometimes it’s 30, sometimes it’s 40. That’s where we end up in-game adjusting or game planning at halftime or whatever’s needed. They have depth, they have veterans, they have experience. At this stretch, again, this is an important stretch, but the big picture, like you guys mentioned, teams are going to have to start making decisions as it relates to who’s playing when they’re going to play because of health. But also they don’t want to put their guys in any kind of situation that compromises their entire team. 

“I hope and pray everyone is healthy and remains healthy because ultimately postseason play, we’re all on the same team when it comes to representing the SEC conference and we want to see everybody successful. So for me, I want our guys to continue to focus on what they need to focus on. And that’s everybody on that roster who has played. We’re assuming that they’re playing.”