It’s Friday morning in Mizzou Arena, and the season opener is three days away.

Two sleeps, if you ask Dennis Gates.

“Because Sunday night, guys are going to be excited — both teams — like it's Christmas Eve, and I don't know who's going to be able to sleep at that point, right?” the Missouri basketball coach said during media availability Friday.

“That's why I say two sleeps away, because that Sunday night, everybody's going to be excited. It's the beginning of college basketball season nationally.”

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When Monday comes, it’ll be the beginning of Year 3 of Gates’ time as Missouri’s head coach. Mizzou isn’t hanging around to meet its first quality opponent, either, traveling to Memphis for a game against an AAC frontrunner in FedEx Forum.

Mizzou is coming off a winless conference campaign and has almost completely retooled its roster. Six transfers have joined the program. A five-player strong Class of 2024, ranked among the country's top five high school groups, is on board, too.

Speaking to media Friday, Gates, at least subtly, tempered immediate expectations about where Missouri will be on Monday evening for the 7 p.m. tip that will stream live on ESPN+.

“You can work on different things in the offseason, but it's not real until that ball is tipped off. This is not an exhibition. This is not a charity game. This is not a closed scrimmage. This is real,” Gates said. “So, to be able to be one of the teams in the country that has put their schedule together and competing at a high level against an opponent like Memphis on the road, it just gives us time to get back to the drawing board to see where we are.”

Where do we expect Missouri to be?

We’ve seen the highs under Gates: An SEC Tournament semifinals berth and NCAA Tournament second round appearance while playing high-stakes, fast-pace, blink-and-you-miss-it offense.

We’ve seen the lows, too: An injury-plagued campaign that fizzled before it fell flat on its face and ended at the first possible juncture … if not long before.

There’s going to be a lot of the same Missouri you’ve seen, both in good and bad iterations, over the course of the past couples seasons.

The team is going to play a fast-break offense that kicks out and takes every half-open look it's offered. Best guesses, even with some additional length, say the Tigers probably won’t be the best rebounding team in the conference because of their style.

But that's not what the team wants to be known for.

“What we've been building since the summer is just being a defensive-minded team,” Missouri guard and team captain Tamar Bates said. “Obviously, we have a lot of guys, whether it's the players that returned or transferred in who can score the basketball, but our mentality that we want to take on is being tough, physical and disruptive on the defensive end.

“ … No matter how the game is going, whether we’re making shots, missing shots, we know that our identity and how we're going to win a lot of games this year is on the defensive end.”

The personnel they have on hand should give them the tools — and the depth — to do that.

The Tigers have five new scholarship transfers, headlined by Duke two-year starter Mark Mitchell and All-Big Ten point guard Tony Perkins. UT Martin sharpshooter Jacob Crews, Northern Kentucky transfer and the NCAA’s active points leader Marques Warrick and 7-foot center Josh Gray all appear to plug specific needs Mizzou missed last season.

Top that off with starting returners in Bates and Caleb Grill, who was given a medical redshirt to return this season after a wrist injury took him out early last year, and the pieces are seemingly there to be an intriguing outfit.

Gates called it a “slow process” getting it all to gel, but the personnel alone should fit the style we saw from Gates’ team in his electric debut campaign.

But, of course, time will tell.

It’s “Christmas Eve.”

Let’s see what the Tigers unwrap on the big day..

“They're going to be excited. Our guys are going to be excited. Our coaches are going to be excited. You know, somebody has to win, somebody has to lose. It's just that simple,” Gates said. “But both teams can play well, at the end of the day, and I just want to use this as a barometer at where we are and see the personality of this team shine bright.”

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Missouri basketballI returns Monday, but how fast can Tigers compete?