The truth about Cuonzo Martin that nobody wanted to
Posted on: February 17, 2019 at 10:34:07 CT
alwaysright MU
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buy into when we were hiring.
He is a good recruiter, but has not shown that he is an elite recruiter. Now, at Mizzou that could actually work out long term. Your assessment of many of these players is simply wrong. For Mizzou to be really good, we actually probably don't want to spend a lot of time chasing 5* players that don't stick around. The model for us is to get 2-3 kids in the 25-75 range each year that will stick around 3-4 years. Martin has not done that consistently yet, but he is getting some 4* talent and that is what we need.
At first, the talk was that 2019 was the year that Martin really had to prove himself as a recruiter. As it has turned out, he did not hit a home run with the 2019 class, but it is solid. Some of that may be on him and some of it on circumstances. We can now see that the real test is the 2020 class. More quality and more quantity in the immediate region for him to target in addition to the ties with Christopher. If Martin can't his the home run in 2020, then you start to wonder what the long term prognosis is.
As far as coaching....a great many people on Tigerbored believed he was a 10 and was the best guy we could possibly hire. Virtually nobody thought he was a terrible coach. I told you he was about a 6.5, maybe a 7. He is above average. You might use words like "solid" or maybe even "good", but you can not use words like "great". I said he would eventually turn MU into a consistent tournament team, but would never make a FF. He is more of a motivator than he is a tactician. Now, he is not a terrible tactician, but it is not his best skill. And guys who are more motivator than tactician can succeed at pretty high levels if they recruit well enough.
Martin's ceiling at Mizzou is probably around 22-25 wins per year, make the NCAA most of the time, win 1-2 NCAA games half of his NCAA appearances. For a great many people, that is good enough. And if the football team were consistently top 25, I might settle for that. But considering that chances in basketball are greater than they are in football, I'd like to be better. And while Martin will probably never truly fail at MU, I said our strategy should have been to hire a guy where failure was a risk but that greatness was a possibility.
Martin's team should contend for a NCAA spot next season and should be contending for a Sweet Sixteen the year after. If not, I might admit he's worse than I said.
Edited by alwaysright at 10:34:18 on 02/17/19