Speaking this week to a St. Louis country club ballroom packed with Mizzou sports donors, Dennis Gates pulled from his pocket a pen.
He held it up to the crowd, asking if his audience remembered the movie, “Men in Black.”
Mizzou’s third-year men’s basketball coach joked he was, like the characters played by Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, going to erase all memory of last season.
Hey, if it can wipe away encounters with aliens, maybe it’s worth a shot to chase the hangover of zero wins in conference play.
Did it work?
Perhaps not quite as well as it would in Hollywood, but the good news is Gates has done a lot more since last season’s dud than create a good speaking engagement stunt.