@ Missouri 12/30/2020 (Final: TN 73, MO 53)

#101
#101
VolinMichigan said:
I'm looking forward to seeing how this team plays against a team with a pulse. St. Joes is probably better than their record indicates, but we haven't really played anyone other than maybe Cincy and that was a while ago. These kids were in middle school when Martin was the coach at UT. It's just another game for them. I'm sure every coach wants to beat the program that fired them, but I don't see why Martin would use that as a motivating factor for his team.
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Colorado is far and away the best team we have played.
 
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#102
#102
volball57 said:
Cuonzo Martin's success at UT was similar to Bruce Pearl's in some areas. Records wise, he never had a season worse than Pearl's last season. He also never had a season as good as Pearl. Cuonzo lacked respect from the fans and from the NCAA Committee. If his name had been Bruce Pearl, he would have never missed the NCAA Tournament.
People are fixated on the games that UT failed to score 40-50points. However we lost those games by single digits. You might not like or agree with his coaching style, but that's a sign of good coaching. Also, when he was hired he was an Assistant to Brad Stephens on a USA Basketball team roster. This shows he was thought highly of as a coach at the time.
While at Tennessee, Cuonzo was not a very good recruiter. He took a lot of reaches and gave me no faith to trust his evaluations. His best class that didn't make it to UT was filled with 3-star prospects. I don't believe any of them ever did anything where they ended up. When Cuonzo left UT, he changed his recruiting philosophy and started getting better players. He did get Jarnell Stokes and Robert Hubbs. Josh Richardson was a project player that blossomed at the end of his third year in the program under Martin. Other than that, there were a lot of reaches.
His personality, recruiting, and style of play gave fans nothing to get excited about and it ultimately did him in. By all accounts he was a good guy and unlike Pearl, had his player's respect.
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Being an assistant to Brad Stephens just shows he should be an assistant and nothing more. He will never be an elite coach. I would barely classify him as good, but I'm just a message board poster. And the reason he never had a season worse was that he used the UT plane to interview for Cal and left a dumpster fire for TN. If he had stayed, that season would have been bad. Real bad. And he knows it.

Admittedly I'm biased. This guy came in preaching ethics and moral character. But the way he left TN shows he is as much a sleaze as Bruce was. Don't preach ethics and high moral character if you don't have it yourself.
 
#103
#103
Cuonzo 3 year career summary at UT:

2011-12
• Final Record 19-15
• Finished 2nd Rd NIT loss to MTSU 64-71

2012-13
• Final Record 20-13
• Finished 1st Rd NIT loss to Mercer 67-75

2013-14
• Final Record 24-13
• NCAA Sweet 16 loss to Michigan 71-73

UT put up some strong performances in Zo's final season but had to sneak into the NCAA tourney through a play-in game and played especially well down the stretch. Martin would leave a depleted roster that not only impacted Tyndall the next year but lead to Barnes struggles in his first years.
 
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#104
#104
People keep posting that Cuonzo is a “below average” coach or “not a good coach” or an “average at best” coach. None of those fit. He’s a good coach or a bit above average coach. He’s not a “very good” or a “great” coach. He just didn’t exceed expectations. But he won championships and took 4 teams to post season tournaments in 9 of 10 years through his 1st year at Missouri. IMO “good coach” describes him the best. That’s just not acceptable to many people.
 
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#106
#106
BreatheUT said:
Above average at best and left the 1st 3 or 4 jobs after 3 years before bad recruiting was exposed.
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Multiple championships. Winning 60% of games. His only really bad season was when he went 11-20 in his first year as a college head coach. He’s a good coach. He’s not a great coach.
 
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#107
#107
Thunder Good-Oil said:
Multiple championships. Winning 60% of games. His only really bad season was when he went 11-20 in his first year as a college head coach. He’s a good coach. He’s not a great coach.
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Do you have a list of the multiple championships? Missouri State? Because he didn't win any at UT, Cal or Missouri now unless I'm missing something.
 
#108
#108
BreatheUT said:
Do you have a list of the multiple championships? Missouri State? Because he didn't win any at UT, Cal or Missouri now unless I'm missing something.
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Missouri State. He also finished tied for 2nd in the SEC regular season his first year at TN when TN was predicted to finish 13th. He’s 6-0 right now.

Cuonzo is a good coach. He is not a great coach. “Good” about fits him perfectly. “Average at best” doesn’t fit. 60% isn’t far from “VERY good”.
 
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#109
#109
Thunder Good-Oil said:
Missouri Srate. He also finished tied for 2nd in the SEC regular season his first year at TN when TN was predicted to finish 13th. He’s 6-0 right now.

Cuonzo is a good coach. He is not a great coach. “Good” about fits him perfectly. “Average at best” doesn’t fit. 60% isn’t far from “VERY good”.
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Ok, I'll grant 6-4, 12-8, etc is close to good.
 
#110
#110
Cuonzo has also been hired by three straight P-5 programs. They generally don’t hire and pay millions of dollars over and over unless the coach is good. His defenses have been much better than average. He’s also had some unfortunate injuries to key players.

Off court he might be pretty average at best. He doesn’t do PR well but IMO he looks out for his players and has been good at guiding them as people. I don’t remember off court problems at UT. Pearl had a handful of players that were chronically in trouble. I bet most of CCM’s former players love him. It could just be a statistical anomaly but he had the least diverse roster at UT since the 1960s. It was also rather sleazy to go interview at UC-B on UT’s dime while “recruiting”.
 
#114
#114
Thunder Good-Oil said:
Most posters in here consider Pearl to be great.
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Pearl is a good coach not a great one. To me he appears to be a carny barker that skirts the rules.

His 1st four years or so at Auburn were below average, but they may have turned it around because of cheating that got Chuck Person in hot water.

Each year at UT he had someone kicked off. Many guys were involved in serious incidents. And he may have brought the most menacing collegiate athletic criminal to Knoxville outside of Janzen Jackson.
 
#115
#115
With the advent of social media i never understood the logic of dissing another team or their coach before a game.
Save it for AFTER you stomp their guts out.
 
#116
#116
volball57 said:
Cuonzo Martin's success at UT was similar to Bruce Pearl's in some areas. Records wise, he never had a season worse than Pearl's last season. He also never had a season as good as Pearl. Cuonzo lacked respect from the fans and from the NCAA Committee. If his name had been Bruce Pearl, he would have never missed the NCAA Tournament.
People are fixated on the games that UT failed to score 40-50points. However we lost those games by single digits. You might not like or agree with his coaching style, but that's a sign of good coaching. Also, when he was hired he was an Assistant to Brad Stephens on a USA Basketball team roster. This shows he was thought highly of as a coach at the time.
While at Tennessee, Cuonzo was not a very good recruiter. He took a lot of reaches and gave me no faith to trust his evaluations. His best class that didn't make it to UT was filled with 3-star prospects. I don't believe any of them ever did anything where they ended up. When Cuonzo left UT, he changed his recruiting philosophy and started getting better players. He did get Jarnell Stokes and Robert Hubbs. Josh Richardson was a project player that blossomed at the end of his third year in the program under Martin. Other than that, there were a lot of reaches.
His personality, recruiting, and style of play gave fans nothing to get excited about and it ultimately did him in. By all accounts he was a good guy and unlike Pearl, had his player's respect.
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I stopped reading after saying his tenure was “similar to Bruce Pearls.”

Holy ****.
 
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#117
#117
BreatheUT said:
Cuonzo 3 year career summary at UT:

2011-12
• Final Record 19-15
• Finished 2nd Rd NIT loss to MTSU 64-71

2012-13
• Final Record 20-13
• Finished 1st Rd NIT loss to Mercer 67-75

2013-14
• Final Record 24-13
• NCAA Sweet 16 loss to Michigan 71-73

UT put up some strong performances in Zo's final season but had to sneak into the NCAA tourney through a play-in game and played especially well down the stretch. Martin would leave a depleted roster that not only impacted Tyndall the next year but lead to Barnes struggles in his first years.
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Cuonzo would have been fired after 14-15 no doubt. He would have put up about 10-12 wins.
 
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#119
#119
Unconditional Surrender said:
Pearl and Barnes are relatively equal, IMO. Probably both top 15 coaches in America. They just get their results in dramatically different ways, and I will take the Barnes route 10 times out of 10.
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For me, the luster of Pearl has faded (pun intended) now that he has a career’s worth of NCAA investigations under his belt.
 
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#120
#120
volball57 said:
Cuonzo Martin's success at UT was similar to Bruce Pearl's in some areas. Records wise, he never had a season worse than Pearl's last season. He also never had a season as good as Pearl. Cuonzo lacked respect from the fans and from the NCAA Committee. If his name had been Bruce Pearl, he would have never missed the NCAA Tournament.
People are fixated on the games that UT failed to score 40-50points. However we lost those games by single digits. You might not like or agree with his coaching style, but that's a sign of good coaching. Also, when he was hired he was an Assistant to Brad Stephens on a USA Basketball team roster. This shows he was thought highly of as a coach at the time.
While at Tennessee, Cuonzo was not a very good recruiter. He took a lot of reaches and gave me no faith to trust his evaluations. His best class that didn't make it to UT was filled with 3-star prospects. I don't believe any of them ever did anything where they ended up. When Cuonzo left UT, he changed his recruiting philosophy and started getting better players. He did get Jarnell Stokes and Robert Hubbs. Josh Richardson was a project player that blossomed at the end of his third year in the program under Martin. Other than that, there were a lot of reaches.
His personality, recruiting, and style of play gave fans nothing to get excited about and it ultimately did him in. By all accounts he was a good guy and unlike Pearl, had his player's respect.
Click to expand...

"Cuonzo Martin's success at UT was similar to Bruce Pearl's in some areas." Umm... well no...

"Records wise, he never had a season worse than Pearl's last season." That's a big time reach. W-L records only tell a partial story, which explains why Pearl's last season, his worst one at UT, still ended in a tourney bid.

"Cuonzo lacked respect from the fans and from the NCAA Committee. If his name had been Bruce Pearl, he would have never missed the NCAA Tournament." No... Cuonzo may have lacked respect from the fans, but some of that is on him. He missed the tournament his 1st 2 years at UT because of the team's resume, not because he wasn't liked by the committee. In 2012 and 2013, the RPI was by far the biggest indicator of an at-large tournament bid. In 2012, we had an RPI close to 90 because we scheduled too many crappy teams. You don't get an at-large bid with an RPI that bad. In 2013, our RPI was 59 with a SOS of 58 - better for sure, but just not good enough. In 4 of Pearl's 6 seasons here, his SOS was in the top 6. And his worst SOS was 19. This led to high RPI's and good seeding in March. He knew exactly how to schedule and game the RPI. Had nothing to do with whether the committee respected him.

Look, I've been over Pearl for a while. I was a huge Pearl fan, but he screwed up royally and messed things up for himself, us, and his assistants. I don't think he really knows how to stay within the boundaries, or even the fringes, of the NCAA rule book. He's a great coach, but a gigantic risk for any program. I'm ready for him to kind of just go away at this point. I'll always appreciate what he did for our program though - he showed you could absolutely win here, and win big.

I've also been over Martin for a while. I was over him by the end of his 2nd season at UT. His team at Missouri this year looks pretty good, but I would say that it's on shaky ground at best. His best players are all juniors and seniors. That's a huge advantage in this pandemic season. Missouri might be forced to offer him an extension after this year, but what's going to happen next season when all those players have left or graduated? They have 4 3-star recruits coming in. Is the fan base going to be ok with waiting another 2-3 years with no tournament while those guys develop?
 
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#121
#121
PandamoniumReigns said:
Being an assistant to Brad Stephens just shows he should be an assistant and nothing more. He will never be an elite coach. I would barely classify him as good, but I'm just a message board poster. And the reason he never had a season worse was that he used the UT plane to interview for Cal and left a dumpster fire for TN. If he had stayed, that season would have been bad. Real bad. And he knows it.

Admittedly I'm biased. This guy came in preaching ethics and moral character. But the way he left TN shows he is as much a sleaze as Bruce was. Don't preach ethics and high moral character if you don't have it yourself.
Click to expand...
I'm not trying to judge his morality, but hiring Porter's father at Mizzou to solidify his chances at getting the Porter kids talent opened my eyes that Martin might not be so ethically straight. No, he didn't break rules and other coaches have done it, but most stay away from that because it wreaks of impropriety.
 
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#122
#122
volball57 said:
Cuonzo Martin's success at UT was similar to Bruce Pearl's in some areas. Records wise, he never had a season worse than Pearl's last season. He also never had a season as good as Pearl. Cuonzo lacked respect from the fans and from the NCAA Committee. If his name had been Bruce Pearl, he would have never missed the NCAA Tournament.
People are fixated on the games that UT failed to score 40-50points. However we lost those games by single digits. You might not like or agree with his coaching style, but that's a sign of good coaching. Also, when he was hired he was an Assistant to Brad Stephens on a USA Basketball team roster. This shows he was thought highly of as a coach at the time.
While at Tennessee, Cuonzo was not a very good recruiter. He took a lot of reaches and gave me no faith to trust his evaluations. His best class that didn't make it to UT was filled with 3-star prospects. I don't believe any of them ever did anything where they ended up. When Cuonzo left UT, he changed his recruiting philosophy and started getting better players. He did get Jarnell Stokes and Robert Hubbs. Josh Richardson was a project player that blossomed at the end of his third year in the program under Martin. Other than that, there were a lot of reaches.
His personality, recruiting, and style of play gave fans nothing to get excited about and it ultimately did him in. By all accounts he was a good guy and unlike Pearl, had his player's respect.
Click to expand...
Your post is interesting. There are several things you state as facts that are more than likely incorrect, and I disagree with them. Conversely, you do have a couple of points that are spot on.
 
#123
#123
wtmvol said:
"Cuonzo Martin's success at UT was similar to Bruce Pearl's in some areas." Umm... well no...

"Records wise, he never had a season worse than Pearl's last season." That's a big time reach. W-L records only tell a partial story, which explains why Pearl's last season, his worst one at UT, still ended in a tourney bid.

"Cuonzo lacked respect from the fans and from the NCAA Committee. If his name had been Bruce Pearl, he would have never missed the NCAA Tournament." No... Cuonzo may have lacked respect from the fans, but some of that is on him. He missed the tournament his 1st 2 years at UT because of the team's resume, not because he wasn't liked by the committee. In 2012 and 2013, the RPI was by far the biggest indicator of an at-large tournament bid. In 2012, we had an RPI close to 90 because we scheduled too many crappy teams. You don't get an at-large bid with an RPI that bad. In 2013, our RPI was 59 with a SOS of 58 - better for sure, but just not good enough. In 4 of Pearl's 6 seasons here, his SOS was in the top 6. And his worst SOS was 19. This led to high RPI's and good seeding in March. He knew exactly how to schedule and game the RPI. Had nothing to do with whether the committee respected him.

Look, I've been over Pearl for a while. I was a huge Pearl fan, but he screwed up royally and messed things up for himself, us, and his assistants. I don't think he really knows how to stay within the boundaries, or even the fringes, of the NCAA rule book. He's a great coach, but a gigantic risk for any program. I'm ready for him to kind of just go away at this point. I'll always appreciate what he did for our program though - he showed you could absolutely win here, and win big.

I've also been over Martin for a while. I was over him by the end of his 2nd season at UT. His team at Missouri this year looks pretty good, but I would say that it's on shaky ground at best. His best players are all juniors and seniors. That's a huge advantage in this pandemic season. Missouri might be forced to offer him an extension after this year, but what's going to happen next season when all those players have left or graduated? They have 4 3-star recruits coming in. Is the fan base going to be ok with waiting another 2-3 years with no tournament while those guys develop?
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Love this post! I agree in totality.
 
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#124
#124
cardvolfan said:
I'm not trying to judge his morality, but hiring Porter's father at Mizzou to solidify his chances at getting the Porter kids talent opened my eyes that Martin might not be so ethically straight. No, he didn't break rules and other coaches have done it, but most stay away from that because it wreaks of impropriety.
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Wreaked of desperation more than anything.
 
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#125
#125
cardvolfan said:
I'm not trying to judge his morality, but hiring Porter's father at Mizzou to solidify his chances at getting the Porter kids talent opened my eyes that Martin might not be so ethically straight. No, he didn't break rules and other coaches have done it, but most stay away from that because it wreaks of impropriety.
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Wade Houston ring a bell?

I'm not a fan of Martin. Good, far from great, coach. Seems to be liked by his former players. I'm glad he's at Missouri instead of Tennessee.
 
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