let's not kid ourselves

Posted on: April 19, 2017 at 15:53:10 CT

(a) Porter, Sr., (and probably Porter, Jr.) were looking for any reason to stay in Columbia to begin with. For whatever reason, they didn't want this with Kim Anderson. He ends up at Univ. of Washington. Odd, other than Porter, Sr., knew the coach, who obviously hired him and therefore recruited his son.

(b) While Cuonzo Martin would have been a viable candidate for the Mizzou coaching job without Porter, Sr. (and thus, Porter, Jr.), a fair question to ANY candidate for a head coaching job is: Who will your assistants be? A second question is: do you have any players to recruit to Mizzou?

Any coach even remotely prepared for that question would have known that the top prospect in this year's senior class was from Columbia, MO, that his dad was a former MU women's assistant coach, and that his sisters were playing for the women's team. It's completely obvious.

(c) Given (b), Martin also would have obviously known that Washington was a train wreck this season and, at the least, Romar was on the hot seat. I don't think it's too much of a stretch for Martin to have reached out to potential assistant coaches (Porter, Sr., and/or others) prior to his interview with Mizzou. Or Illinois. Or wherever.

(d) Martin speaking with Porter, Sr., about taking an assistant's job at MU should he (Martin) be hired there, is simply doing his due diligence. Think about it: even if Porter, Jr. isn't the #1 player in high school, Porter, Sr., being an assistant at Mizzou makes sense. His family is from there and his daughters play basketball at MU.

(e) Martin knew full well what bringing in Porter, Sr. to be an assistant meant: recruiting Porter, Jr.

(f) the whole deal was worked out, ahead of time. That doesn't mean that Martin contacted Porter, Jr., or any of that improperly. But, the whole deal was worked out ahead of time, is my speculation.