The Dinner that [never] happened...

What a day yesterday for #ConspiracyMizzouTwitter.

In case you missed all of it, things got kicked off with a podcast from the ‘Locked On Mizzou’ podcast network and YouTube Channel. I’m sure at least some of you are subscribers, but a video/podcast went out early yesterday which spoke of a dinner. A dinner that would lead to this tweet from Mizzou’s Whitten Family Head Basketball Coach Dennis Gates:

Dennis Gates really did a whole tweet to give a timeline of events that places him AT THE SCENE of the report only with some dinner companions who are most definitely NOT Caleb Love.

You see, the report from ‘Locked On’ host John Miller stated that Gates and newly re-portaled and former North Carolina guard Caleb Love were having dinner together on Wednesday. There were some slight holes in the original report in that there was a quiet period in recruiting on Wednesday, and a dead period started on Thursday. That meant any contact with Gates and Love would have to be of the unofficial variety. So IF dinner was had it would have had to occur on campus. And IF Gates and Love were spotted together at dinner, that would have had to of been on campus. So the likelihood of an on-campus dinner being caught seems remote.

I’m sure there are many who are dragging the report at this point. It’s been adamantly refuted by Dave Matter:

It’s a tough situation really. Miller went out on a limb. But secondhand information is really difficult to parse through even in the best of times. But it does seem like his source is who let him down. At this point, I’m very inclined to believe this dinner didn’t happen, and that whoever was mistaken to be Caleb Love was instead one of these two ‘coaches’ Gates tweeted about. A simple case of mistaken identity.

There’s a reason you’ll hear me or Matt Harris speak more in vague statements about how staffs feel or something along those lines. Speaking on things that did or didn’t happen is much tougher if you don’t have first-person knowledge. Second-hand info needs to be understood for what it is. Not everything there is rock solid.

Things we think we know: Mizzou is at least interested in Caleb Love. They are unlikely to have a big public courting of Love. Love is going to have a lot of other options.

Tomorrow I’ll weigh the pros and cons of even re-entering this race. But for now, we at least know Dennis Gates did have dinner on Wednesday night and it was not with Caleb Love.