COLUMBIA, Mo. — Dennis Gates allowed himself to briefly crack a smile after Missouri throttled Illinois in last Thursday’s Braggin’ Rights Game, but the first-year coach had plenty of nits to pick with the Tigers’ 22-point victory, Mizzou’s most lopsided win in the series’ 53-year history.
“I'm measuring things on completion and whole, not parts,” he said Tuesday. “And when I look at it from a whole, it’s not a complete game that we played. No different than I'm not going to measure our season on a part. I measure it on a whole. So I won't know how I feel about our season until April 4, right when the final rankings come out.