Sunday Sit-down with PowerMizzou’s Gabe DeArmond
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
ABC 17 Sports Director Nathalie Jones brought on PowerMizzou's Gabe DeArmond in this week's edition of Sunday Sit-down.
The two put a bow on the Mizzou men's and women's hoops seasons. The Tiger men's team finished 25-10 overall, making it to the program's first SEC Tournament semifinals and falling out in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. DeArmond said first year head coach Dennis Gates' first year in Columbia surpassed expectations.
"If you would have said 25 wins, fourth in the SEC, make the semis, win a tournament game, everything was good," he said. "I mean, I said at the beginning of the year that the ceiling was like, maybe you win 20. Like you get lucky, you're on the bubble and slide in. I thought that was the best that this team was going to do and they were far beyond that."
One big story line of Gates' first offseason will be if standout forward Kobe Brown decides to play one more year of college basketball or not. DeArmond said he could see Brown's decision going either way.
"I can make as much money in college as I could play in basketball somewhere else. Why not come back and be the big man on campus for one more year. Now, the flip side of that is a lot of people get done with four years of college and maybe Kobe doesn't want to be 24 years old on a college campus, right? But I mean, he has a chance to make a good amount of money and go from a really good player to like all of a sudden you open up the record books and his names all over that," DeArmond said.
On the women's side, Mizzou Athletics confirmed this week that head coach Robin Pingeton will be returning for her 14th season in Columbia. The decision comes after a disappointing end to the 2022-23 campaign. The Tigers finished the year 18-14 overall, falling out in the first round of the SEC Tournament and getting blown out by Kansas in the second round of the WNIT.
DeArmond said he spoke with Athletics Director Desiree Reed-Francois about Pingeton's tenure and the expectation is the NCAA Tournament.
"Desiree did not flat out say she's gonna get fired if she doesn't make the tournament because you don't say that, but I think she said we will not apologize for wanting our kids to expect to be in the postseason," he said. "That's saying something, without saying something."
The duo also talked about Mizzou football's spring camp. DeArmond said the expectation for head coach Eli Drinkwitz, heading into his fourth season in Columbia, will be higher than the 6-7 record the group finished with in 2022.
Watch Jones and DeArmond's full conversation on SportsZone at 9:30 on Fox 22 and 10:30 on ABC 17.
