The Cuonzo Martin hire: Why I think we hit a home run

I’d be lying if I told you two things: 1) That I am a “kool-aid drinker” and 2) I knew who Counzo Martin was before 6:30 PM Sunday night. If you remember last spring/summer, I railed against the Dooley hire, and while I have tempered my stance for multiple reasons (Because he’s done okay so far and you can argue without being a jackass), I still don’t think am not sure he’ll bring championshps. I remember hearing the name Counzo Martin, but basically that he was the Missouri State basketball coach, and that was it. I knew nothing of else. Hell, I didn’t even know he was a candidate, let alone the first person interviewed.

When I got over the intial shock of the hire, I decided to look at his resume. I also want to check a couple boards, look at stats, and see what he had done at Missouri State. I didn’t want to overreact, by putting on the orange colored glasses, or by burning my mattress at Neyland Drive. After researching a good hour or so, I came to the conclusion that Mike Hamilton hit this one on the head. Not only was I moved by his story, I was impressed with his coaching resume and what his peers said about him. When Gene Keady says “In my fifty years of coaching, he’s the best leader I’ve ever seen,” that’s a good sign.

Improvement. If you are looking at a mid-major coach in any collegiate sport, you have to look at the improvement of the program. Coach Martin has showed remarkable improvement. He went from 11 wins in his first season to 26 wins. That’s a 15 win improvement in a couple short years. And for those wondering what he took over, his first team only had five scholarship players. That’s less than 50% of your roster. This isn’t a Shaka Smart situation, where he is winning with someone else’s players. He has built the Missouri State program. Also, when looking at a mid-major coach, look at the type program he took over. Missouri State is a decent MVC school. They’ve had success before. However, Cuonzo Martin won their first regular season title in 23 years. They also were four points away from winning the conference tourney, and had a case to make the tournament with an RPI of 43.

Now, let’s talk recruiting. It’s very hard to judge a mid-major on how they recruit. Very hard. Derek Dooley went from La. Tech, basically having bottom 30 classes, to Tennessee where he had a concensus top 12 recruiting class his first full year. Different sports, but the same adage applies: If you hire a mid-major coach, how he recruits is a crapshoot. And that is usually true. However, there are a couple things I noticed from Coach Martin that make me say “We might have something here.” His recruiting class was looking good at Missouri State. Thanks to volwarrior33, Missouri State was in on two top 150 players, and was in on a top 100 player in Otto Porter. Pretty good at an MVC school. However, I look at his Purdue days as an assistant, and saw where Brent Hubbs learned that Martin was the main recruiter for All-American JaJuan Johnson and first team Big Ten E’Twaun Moore. That is a good, positive sign to show he can recognize talent. Also, Purdue fans contend that recruiting has gone down since Martin left, and that he was their best recruiter while at Purdue. And it never hurts to be a former NBA player, even if it was only for a couple years. That is still a huge positive, especially since Tennessee has had a hard time putting players in the pros.

I’ve only seen one Cuozono Martin game, and that was against us. I decided to look at some stats to decide what kind of “style” we will run and what other people say. Martin runs a motion offense. In talking with Kesling, Martin says he runs a motion offense with fifteen set plays. In a motion offense, that’s a good number, since most motion offenses have multiple options in just one play. Considering we had zero motion in our offense for six years, that is a plus. The team also shoots three pointers…and shoots them well. Martin’s team averaged 19 three pointers a game, and shot 37.5 percent. That is a very good percentage for one player, but for a whole team? Very impressive. Thanks to StepCross, he also had a top ten rebounding team defensively in the nation the last two years. Defensively, I couldn’t gather much, but I’ve read his teams are disciplined, and can occasionally press. In the presser, Martin said no zone, and if we did play zone, in his own words, “we are in trouble.” It’s going to be in your face defense. I would expect from someone in the Gene Keady coaching tree that if you don’t play defense, you won’t play. That is something we need on the Hill.

There are some who still aren’t convinced. That is fine and I understand. Here is where I love the Martin hire. Despite Pearl’s strengths, his biggest weakness was accountability and on court discipline. To be quite frank, the last couple years there wasn’t any. Counzo Martin is not going to let any of that happen. The players will be held accountable and will be expected to do what he told them to do. This team will be disciplined, which is something the players desperately need. His team this past year only averaged ten turnovers, top ten in the country. He is a coach who won’t let Scotty Hopson dangle his head after a bad play, Cam Tatum show the no care attitude, or a guy like Brian bicker with the officials every single time. I think the program needs someone who will bring that discipline and accountability to Tennessee. I’m 100% confident Cuozono Martin will bring that.

I’m a big component of the “it” factor, that thing where you can’t really explain why you like a certain player or coach so much, put an exact finger on why that player/coach is so successful, or why you think a player/coach will be successful. After listening to a couple press conferences, and reading others opinions on Cuozono Martin, the guy just has that “it” factor. Mizzouri fans wanted him as thier second choice. Purdue fans wanted him as the guy if Painter left for Mizzou fans. Just like LSU fans that wanted Dooley, it says a little something. When two good, BCS programs want a coach, that speaks volumes in my mind about what people think about him. Watch his press conference, read his background growing up and tell me he won’t thrive in the homes of parents. There is MAJOR UPSIDE for Cuozono Martin as the head coach. He went 61-41 overall as the coach for Missouri State. The last two years, he was 50-21 the last two years. That is something you absolutely want to see. I love it when he said that the goal is to win a national title here. That is expecting greatness. That is something you want in a coach, especially one that is notably a football school. Are there some risks? Some. Like I said before, we don’t know how he will recruit. Can he handle the pressure of the SEC, is his X’s and O’s good enough, etc. I can’t be 100% sure. However, I honestly believe that Tennessee has got a great coach for the basketball program.