Tiger Talk Notes and Quotes: Last of 2025 Edition

Dennis Gates, David “Dickey” Nutt and Mike Kelly returned to Harpo’s for Tiger Talk to recap the week and look ahead to the Braggin’ Rights game against the University of Illinois.

Here’s what the duo had to say:

Dennis Gates

On Jacob Crews: You see him do a better job defensively. You see a guy just being more and more comfortable. We like to try our best to not just get one year transfers but try to get two years so they can settle into the environment but also help our retention and having a guy like that come back is really important

On how Crews has become more comfortable: Well, he allows himself to be coached. I think ultimately when you’re in a new environment, you may not agree with the systems, but it’s an adjustment. At that time last year, Jacob became a father for the first time. He’s a husband. So, there’s responsibilities that that young man had been juggling, but ultimately being able to now fall in love with the process, but also be here in a community, a place that he calls home, his wife calls home, and ultimately their son was born here. So, that’s a tremendous adjustment to go through, but also something to build upon. 

Well, these young men have a lot of pressure and believe it or not, you know, that pressure can go into not just their home, but also off the court and also on the court. So, we want these guys to fall in love with the player development plans, continue to get better, and obviously over a period of time, you cannot focus just on the finish line. You got to focus on the journey, focus on the race, and those things you cannot uh eliminate or ignore because that’s how you continue to get better. And that’s what Jacob’s done. 

On Anthony Robinson II’s recent stretch: Yeah, great rhythm. It’s great to see him play both sides of the ball extremely long period of time getting used to playing 30 minutes, but ultimately him taking care of the basketball, being able to see the benefits of a Jacob Crews or even a Luke Northweather open up some gaps. He missed Jaden Stone. We all miss Jaden Stone, but you know, guys got to step up and that’s what Jacob Crews has done and I’m looking forward for Annor Boateng to do the same thing.

On Bethune-Cookman: Well, our guys, they didn’t try to hit home runs. They were worried about getting guys on base. They were worried about making the small plays and the several compounding of small plays allowed us to, you know, do some big things. And I’m excited about guys being able to concentrate in those little areas, rebounding the basketball, defending. I thought it was our best defensive outing for a long time. 

On what’s allowed the team to shoot better than 50% from the field: Our shot profile has to be great. We have to be able to share the basketball. We have to not turn it over as much. We have to be able to have possessions of multiple pass counts. We have to have possessions where we get fouled. Getting to that free throw line is important and we got to have guys being able to knock down open shots and that helps us tremendously in addition to our second chance points. 

On the team’s shot profile: We want guys to take the shots that they are accustomed to, but also we want guys to have rob shots. We want them to be in range and rhythm and on balance. And ultimately, we want them to be assisted baskets if possible and not all off the dribble. In addition to that, we want to have a high foul count, meaning we want to draw fouls one way or another and put pressure on the basket and obviously try to get paint touches. 

Gates also broke down film from recent games with Kelly. The head coach covered pass tracing, disruption on defense and more.

On how long it takes the team to pick up the way Gates wants them to play: It probably takes just a summer, probably two months to kind of train multiple actions, multiple behaviors. We don’t want them to be a one or two effort guy. We want two, three, four efforts in one possession. But ultimately, the biggest thing is making these players use their hands, use their wings spans, use their length, and be able to get deflections. And that’s key. Most kids concentrate on blocks and steals. If you increase your deflections, you’re automatically going to have blocks and steals. 

On where he learned the philosophy of switching on the defensive end: So it came from Leonard Hamilton and obviously he allowed me to do some defensive things and for the most part because we had size at every position we were able to do that as the whistle changed as freedom of movement changed that’s where switching became more valuable because ultimately it keeps you out of rotation. It keeps you in a defensive shell and you don’t have many moving parts and you can just stand and build a wall and be prepared to block out. 

On Braggin’ Rights: It’s one of the longest playing neutral game rivalries in the country and one of the best basketball rivalries out there …. It’s a great environment, a great tradition and obviously it’s a big game. It’s a big game for us and we’re excited about it. There’s no doubt about it in our minds. We do remember last season. It was a tough game. It started off a little rocky. Well, it started off well. It got a little rocky and then I think I picked up a technical foul and we ignited the crowd and we were able to get a lead and you know we weren’t able to close a game and I thought our guys played very very well. Well, we were able to get through the whistle, get through the environment, and settle in our nerves, and we almost tied it up with a three-point attempt by Jacob Crews on the right wing that hit the back of the iron, and I thought it was going in. 

On the importance of beating Illinois on the glass: Well, earlier in that game they did some great things and we were able to neutralize it later in the middle and late third of the game and you know they just they were just pounding the glass and the philosophy of Brad and his program comes from you know the coach he worked for um you know Huggins over at Kansas State.

David “Dickey” Nutt

On what he likes about this team: They’re a super group of guys. They play as hard as they can and they just want to do so well and when they don’t do so well sometimes they’ll hang their head, but that’s a good sign. They want to do well. They want to please the coach and you love that about them. They show up every day and that’s what you like about that team. 

On reflecting on his cancer-free announcement a year ago: I feel like the luckiest guy in the world because I did beat cancer. But when I was diagnosed with cancer, I went to coach and I told him, I said, “You know, coach, now’s your chance. You can send me to Florida and I’ll play golf the rest of my life. Now, I can’t buy yachts, but I can go to Florida and I can play golf the rest of my life.” And he said, “No way, man. You’re standing right here. You’re standing. We’re going to get you through that.” And I just feel the luckiest guy in the world because I was able to still be involved in the hospital either watching film or watching the games by TV. And then I recovered and got back out on the with the staff and he said, “Coach, I’m going to put you assistant to the head coach, which is behind the bench, and do everything from behind the scenes.” And I said, “Coach, I’ll do whatever you want me to do.” And then after one year went by and then he puts me back out on the floor with the coaching and teaching and recruiting and everything from A to Z and and again I feel like the luckiest guy in the world. 

On seeing Tony Madlock, a former assistant, and what that means to him: Well, it’s a great thing because what happened is when I got the job at Arkansas State University at 35 years old, I went straight to Memphis about an hour 60 mi away from Jonesboro and said, “Memphis is a basketball city.” Now, there are a lot of cities out here,, basketball cities, uh, but there are a lot of football cities out there, too. But Memphis is primarily a basketball city. So, I felt like I had to have an assistant on my staff from Memphis. And so, I go over there and everybody keeps talking about Tony Madlock, a high school coach, 27 years old. He played with Penny Hardway, graduated in three years. Mom and dad are lawyers. What an outstanding young man. I think we opened the bank and gave him $12,000 to come join me. But nine years later, he went the head coach. 

On Coach Gates: I think that’s the thing that Dennis Gates does the best is that he makes sure that he respects every opinion that someone has. If someone thinks they have to sit up in that meeting and say, “Coach, I really believe that we need to play more zone or we need to do this or that.” Well, he will look at them and say, “Tell me why.” And I love that about him because I’ve been on staff before when I was younger that if somebody would say, “Hey, hey, coach, you don’t know what you’re talking about.” You know, he was probably right. But what that does is that weakens your relationship, that weakens your staff and the stronger your staff is, those players, you can’t fool those players. They know. So when you have that kind of relationship with your head coach and he treats you like that, then it’s just easy to carry that over 

On Braggin’ Rights: Well, the amazing thing about it is that you can barely get a seat in there and it’s played in Christmas time and everybody is just so busy with doing whatever, but it doesn’t matter. They drop everything that they’re doing and they get to this game. Obviously in our first year we had our way with them and I mean it was a way I mean we put on a clinic and obviously it kind of evened out a little bit but they’re good and anytime that you can play in a neutral sight and have that kind of following and the entire arena is split between Missouri and Illinois, I mean it’s basketball world it’s a great event. 

On how much better the team can get in this point of the schedule: I think one of the things that Coach Gates does that’s special is he really watches their body language. He wants to make sure that we don’t wear them out because here’s what you got. It’s a fragile time of year too because all of the kids, all of the students are gone home and here you are up here practicing. Everybody’s gone with their family and now you’re right in the middle of obviously you’ve got finals and everything. There’s so much going on and you’re trying to maintain whether it be weight weights in the morning, you got practice in the afternoon, sometimes you got two a days. It’s easy to get your head down a little bit. Coach does a a really good job of of mixing that up. It’s giving them time. For instance, yesterday we had the entire day off and the day before just to catch up on our finals and to make sure we do a lot of meals together. But you’re right. This is a great time for a basketball player because it’s like the NBA. All you do is practice, eat, and play ball. And so that’s a great thing for us. And you have more time. Our guys are getting in this gym getting extra shots up and things like that. So it’s a great time. 

On where the team can get better: Obviously everybody wants to talk about defense, you know, and as a coach, that’s what our emphasis is on to be a better defensive team. However, we’re playing a lot of good people that can know how to score when it comes to the SEC. So, we have to get ready for that. But defensively, you can always get better defensively guarding the ball, guarding the ball screen, checking out on cutting out on shots and things like that, rebounding the basketball. But defensive rebound is the foundation. And then offensively, you’ve got to make sure that you’re executing and make sure your fundamentals are good, your screening, your passing, your shooting, all that stuff plays a big role in trying to get better. And I think we’re going to get better and I think we’re just going to continue to grow.