Cuonzo Martin out as Mizzou hoops coach
After five years, Cuonzo Martin is out as Missouri's basketball coach, sources confirmed to PowerMizzou.com. Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports and Dave Matter of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch first reported the news.
Missouri officially announced that Martin will not return for the 2022-23 season Friday evening. The terms of Martin's contract, which stipulated that he be paid $6 million to be bought out prior to May 1, 2023, will be honored, per the school.
“Coach Martin represented the University with an extremely high level of class and dignity," Missouri athletics director Desiree Reed-Francois said in the release. “He is a man of high character whom I have the upmost respect for, and we are grateful for his contributions to our program, on and off the floor. He is not only a coach, but is a teacher, and he has impacted the lives of every student-athlete who came through the program over the last five years. We wish him, Roberta, and their family nothing but the best in the future.”
Martin's final record at Mizzou was 78-77, including a 12-21 record in year five, his third losing season in five. He led the Tigers to NCAA Tournament berths in 2017-18 and 2021-22.
Reed-Francois announced that "a national search for a new leader of the men's basketball program will begin immediately." The search will be led by former college basketball coach and current consultant Eddie Fogler, who Reed-Francois hired to assist with the search that ultimately resulted in the hiring of T.J. Otzelberger when she was the athletics director at UNLV.
“I believe that Mizzou is one of the best men’s basketball coaching jobs in the country,” Reed-Francois said. "Our University is the flagship institution of our great state and a member of the Southeastern Conference, the premier league in college athletics. We are located in a recruiting hotbed and there’s incredible alignment between our department and our President and Board of Curators. We have — and will — continue to invest in our men’s basketball program and I look forward to introducing the new leader of our program to our community in the near future. We will work quickly and expeditiously to find the candidate who is the best fit to continue building our championship culture.”
Martin was named to succeed Kim Anderson at Mizzou on March 15, 2017, though he didn't officially start until eight days later. Missouri had gone just 27-68 in Anderson's three seasons and Jim Sterk tabbed Martin with rescuing a program which had been one of the worst in high major basketball over the previous three seasons.
The impact was immediate. Michael Porter Jr., the nation's No. 1 player in the Class of 2017, committed to Mizzou on March 24th, Martin's second day on the job. Jontay Porter, Michael's younger brother, reclassified and committed on May 22. In between, the Tigers landed commitments from three-star guard Blake Harris, four-star big man Jeremiah Tilmon and Canisius graduate transfer Kassius Robertson to give Martin a top five national recruiting class in his first two months on campus.
Porter would play less than three minutes in the season opener against Iowa State before leaving with a back injury that would sideline him for the remainder of the regular season. Despite his absence, Martin led the Tigers to a 20-13 record and the team's first NCAA Tournament bid in five years. The eighth-seeded Tigers lost to Florida State in the first round, but there was extreme optimism for the future.
Michael Porter left for the NBA following that season and year two for Martin was dealt another injury blow as Jontay Porter tore his ACL in a pre-season scrimmage. Now in full rebuild mode that was delayed a year with the signing of the 2017 class, Missouri went 30-33 over the next two seasons.
Martin led the Tigers back to the NCAA Tournament in the COVID-shortened 2020-21 season. Led by a senior-laden roster headlined by Evansville transfer Dru Smith, the Tigers raced to a 13-3 start and were ranked 10th in the country after a win over Alabama on February 6. But Mizzou lost seven of ten to finish the season, including an opening round NCAA Tournament loss to Oklahoma that extended Missouri's drought without an NCAA Tournament win to 11 years.
Due to graduations and transfers, Martin found himself with only three players returning on the 2021-22 team. He signed five high school players and four transfers, but things went wrong from the beginning this season. The second game of the year was an 80-66 home loss to UMKC. The Tigers were also blown out by Liberty, Kansas and Illinois in the non-conference season. The final record was 12-21, capped off by a 76-68 loss to LSU in the SEC Tournament on Thursday.
PowerMizzou.com will continue to cover this story and the coaching search every day as Mizzou looks for Martin's replacement.
Sign up today and get all the news with a premium subscription.
Talk about this story and more in The Tigers' Lair
Make sure you're caught up on all the Tiger news and headlines
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel for video and live streaming coverage