Purdue basketball Coach Matt Painter and newly minted Missouri head coach Cuonzo Martin go way back. They played in west Lafayette together from 1991-1993. Later on, they were both back at Purdue, assistants under Gene Keady.
On Wednesday afternoon the news broke that Cuonzo Martin was resigning his position as Head Coach at California. Then we learned that Martin was off to coach Missouri, signing a deal reportedly worth $21 million over three years, and not Illinois, a school with which he had frequently been linked.
On Thursday morning, we measured the pulse of the Purdue base in regards to the Cuonzo news.
On Thursday night, following #4 seeded Purdue’s 80-70 win over #13 seed Vermont, we elicited reaction from Matt Painter.
“I didn’t talk to him about why he did it. I just texted him and congratulated him,” Painter said on dais in Milwaukee.
“There’s always — you know, the place that you’re at and the place you’re going, you have personal and professional reasons why you make those decisions. He didn’t share those with me.”
Martin is 186-121 over his nine year career as a head coach. He’s now coached three different programs (Missouri State, Tennessee and Cal) for three seasons a piece.
Martin has only reached the NCAA Tournament twice, and he’s never advanced beyond the Sweet Sixteen. That run came in 2014 with Tennessee, marking the only two tournament games that he’s ever won. He is a very accomplished recruiter though, having landed McDonald’s All-Americans Jaylen Brown and Ivan Rabb at a Cal program that had fallen well down from its peak.
We asked Matt Painter how he thinks Martin will do at Mizzou, a program that hasn’t had a winning record since 2014, and hasn’t reached the NCAA Tournament since 2013.
“He’ll do great once he gets a bunch of players, like anybody else.” the Purdue coach responded.
“There is no such thing as a great coach and average players. You got to get really good players in a really good league. He’s coached in Missouri Valley, he’s coached in the Big Ten, he’s coached in the SEC, the PAC-12.”
“He understands what it he takes to win and — but, you also have the guys, and that might take a couple years before you can get to that point.”
It’s a massive rebuilding project ahead of Martin as the Tigers never finished better than 3-15 in the SEC under Kim Anderson; who’s “best” team was just 10-21.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times and NBC Chicago.com, contributes to Chicago Tribune.com, Bold, WGN CLTV and KOZN.
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