This Mizzou basketball team is fun to watch.

First-year Tigers coach Dennis Gates has restored the roar at Mizzou Arena. Sellouts are becoming the norm, drawing in everyone, including The Norm. The Tigers are 15-5 with three ranked wins in their bag entering Saturday’s showdown against No. 12 Iowa State.

(One quick sidebar about Saturday’s game. The 15-4 Cyclones are 6-2 in the loaded Big 12 and have five wins against ranked teams. Second-year coach T.J. Otzelberger is 37-17 and headed for his second NCAA Tournament appearance in as many seasons. Guess where Iowa State plucked him from? From UNLV, where current Mizzou athletics director Desiree Reed-Francois hired him. Is anyone else starting to think Reed-Francois knows a thing or two about making solid revenue-sports hires? Me, too.)

Mizzou is in solid shape for an at-large NCAA Tournament bid, projected as high as a No. 8 seed this week, with 11 games to go and the SEC tournament to improve that outlook. Unlike Mike Anderson‘s “Fastest 40 Minutes” style that led Mizzou to its last NCAA Tournament win all the way back in 2010, Gates doesn’t have a specific name for his brand of basketball, but certain traits have emerged, and they are both effective and endearing.

Yes, this Mizzou basketball team is fun to watch.

These are some of the biggest reasons why ...

• This offense is electric and efficient. College basketball statistical maestro Ken Pomeroy, whose rankings and projections have become as much of a landing page for college basketball as FanGraphs is for Major League Baseball, keeps track of a metric called adjusted offensive efficiency. It uses a team’s offensive performance and defensive statistics across the game to estimate the number of points a team would score per 100 possessions against an average Division I opponent. Mizzou ranks sixth in the nation, checking in at 117.9 points per 100 offensive possessions. Gates’ Tigers are churning at a high pace but with a method to the madness. Five Tigers are averaging double-digit scoring, with seven averaging eight or more points per game. Four are averaging at least 2.5 assists per game.

• These guys can shoot. Seven MU players are making at least 45 percent of their field goals. Five regulars have made 35 percent or more of their 3-point attempts. Pomeroy’s effective field goal percentage is just like the traditional field-goal percentage, but it gives 50 percent more credit for made 3-pointers. Mizzou’s effective field-goal percentage of 55.4 is the 15th-best in the nation. The Tigers are shooting an SEC second-best 34.5 percent from deep while leading the conference in the percentage of made two-pointers (58.1 percent). Mizzou leads the SEC in field-goal percentage (55.4 percent), free-throw percentage (75.8) and is tied atop the league in points per shot (1.35). Slumps will come. Cold nights happen. Shooters have to keep shooting, and this team is stocked with confident ones. It’s fun to see the ball go in the basket. Easier said than done for too many college teams, including past Mizzou ones. Not this one.

• The Tigers have mastered the art of both taking the ball from their opponents and refusing to give it back. Their 15.9 percent turnover percentage on offense is one of the 30-best in the nation. Meanwhile, their 25.2 percent turnover percentage created defensively ranks seventh-highest. Mizzou leads the SEC in steals, swiping 228 so far this season. No other conference opponent has more than 194. Mizzou swarms passing lanes, pokes balls away, and turns its defense into offense, embracing the risks that come with being perhaps a little too aggressive at times. But when the ball is in the Tigers’ hands, the poise of their guards stops their defensive medicine from being used against them. This team dribbles and passes about as well as it disrupts those requirements for opponents.

• Kobe Brown is thriving. You never know how a player is going to react after a coaching change. These days, most hit the portal. Those who stay can get passed over by the new guys the new coach recruited. Brown stuck around after former coach Cuonzo Martin was let go. He gave Gates a chance. Gates is rewarding him with a star role and a system that is maximizing his strengths and continued development. Mizzou’s leading scorer is producing career-highs in scoring (15.8 points per game), field-goal percentage (56.5 percent) and 3-point percentage (43.6). There’s better news. Brown is eligible to come back next season if he wants to. Mizzou supporters should be saving up name, image and likeness dollars to encourage him to do just that.

• Gates’ transfers have passed the test. Other than Brown and Ronnie DeGray, no significant contributors returned to the roster. This first Gates-coached team, picked to finish 11th in the SEC, was going to sink or swim based on the staff’s ability to identify players who could arrive with instant help to offer. Almost every incoming piece has secured a role, from the Cleveland State tag-alongs, to the junior college additions, to the lone Power 5 transfer. Last season’s Mizzou team flopped when Martin’s transfers fizzled. These ones are firing on all cylinders. That’s scouting and coaching. Gates built a team that has a great blend of talent, experience and toughness. These players are getting good game plans and sticking to them on the court. You can see that each game has a certain plan of attack and emphasis. I’ve lost track of how many times the Tigers have scored out of a timeout or on an inbounds play. Great signs.

• Gates has a permeable barrier to his rotation, and it makes his team better. DeGray played his way off the bench earlier this season. The personal issues that kept talented Missouri State transfer Isiaih Mosley from being a regular participant were weathered, and now he’s blooming into one of the team’s best scoring options. One game, promising freshman Aidan Shaw makes his first start. The next game, junior college transfer Mohamed Diarra takes a massive step forward off the bench. Nine different Tigers have started a game for Gates. Ten Tigers are averaging 10 minutes per game or more. Even Mizzou’s walk-ons have a real role. It’s hard to find a bench more excited and supportive than Mizzou’s. Ben Sternberg and Jackson Francois do a great job of keeping the enthusiasm up.

“I just look at it from the standpoint of our player development, and how we go about it from the very beginning,” Gates said this week. “It’s a part of our culture, a part of our program, where we want guys to continue to get better, whether they’re in the starting lineup, or whether they’re playing major minutes, or whether they’re a walk-on. I just truly believe in player development, and you have to keep your team prepared for whatever obstacle can come up.”

Gates’ coaching walks his talk. It keeps his guys invested. It means the ceiling of his team can continue to climb as the season progresses. It’s already become more fun than most imagined, with the best part potentially still ahead.