Martin's toughest job starts now
Cuonzo Martin did one of the better coaching jobs in the country this year. A couple of weeks ago, Joe Walljasper put it among the top five coaching jobs in the history of Missouri basketball.
Now it gets really tough.
The Tigers lost to Georgia 62-60 on Thursday in the SEC Tournament. Much of the debate after the game was how big a factor trying to integrate Michael Porter Jr. into the offense had been.
“We didn't want to change that,” Martin said of the offense that had gotten Mizzou to 20-11 and the five seed in that tournament. “What we tried to do more than anything was have a few things where Mike could play out of that. So it didn't flow as well.
“We knew as a staff, coming back, it wouldn't flow as well unless you got him spotting up in the corner. One, because of foul trouble, we put him in some spots that he wasn't accustomed to from the time he was practicing. But other than that, I thought the guys were fine.”
Porter missed 12 of his 17 shots. The rest of the Tigers shot pretty poorly as well. Kassius Robertson took only three shots in the first half and finished 3-for-10. Jordan Barnett (more on him in a minute) missed seven of his eight shots.
So Martin and the Tigers got back to work on Friday in Columbia with a handful of days to figure out how to integrate their most talented offensive player into the system that they’ve run all season long.
This alone was going to present Martin with a hell of a challenge. Once Porter said he was going to play, the coach had no choice. Basically the only way to end the year-long honeymoon Martin has had with Mizzou fans would be to lose an NCAA Tournament game with Michael Porter Jr. available and sitting on the bench. So you're going to play Porter Jr. and you’re going to play him as much as he says he can handle.
(As an aside here, let’s be clear that we aren’t blaming Porter for the loss on Thursday. Missouri played terribly and still could have won if it had done one of about six things right down the stretch. It didn’t happen. With Porter sitting out, Missouri probably wouldn’t have won that game either, so that’s not the point. The point is simply that there is no precedent for adding a ball-dominant player like Porter to an offense that has played 31 games without him this late in the year).
So Martin already had a hell of a week in front of him. And then Saturday morning happened.
At 3:26 a.m., senior wing man Jordan Barnett was arrested by University police on suspicion of driving while intoxicated.
Mizzou said it was aware of the incident and would have no further comment at the time. PowerMizzou.com was told on Saturday afternoon that Martin wanted to address the situation in person with local media at the team’s Selection Sunday gathering. The school’s student-athlete handbook states that an athlete arrested for driving under the influence will be suspended from team activities for a minimum of one week.
Barnett’s arrest occurred at 3:26 a.m. Saturday. So if you want to assume his suspension went into effect at 3:27 a.m., he’s certainly going to miss the Tigers’ first NCAA Tournament game. Should Missouri win that one, if it's in a location that plays on Friday and Sunday, the most optimistic (and tunnel-vision, all-that-matters-is-winning-the-game) among us say he might be available for that second round game on Sunday.
Let’s call that unlikely, but we don’t know for sure until Martin speaks on Sunday. The team flight to a tournament location would technically be a “team activity," correct? So can Barnett go? Or would he have to get himself to the location early on Sunday morning, suit up and then join the team for shootaround?
Like I said, let’s call it unlikely. We’re going to assume that Missouri is playing two games without its second-leading scorer and rebounder this weekend and the only way Barnett’s career isn’t over is if Mizzou pulls off a massive upset against a 1 or 2 seed in the second round and finds its way to the Sweet 16.
Losing Barnett’s 13.7 points and 5.9 rebounds is damaging enough. But beyond that, it’s a body. And Mizzou doesn't have so many of those right now.
Throughout the second half of the season, Martin has navigated his way through games with Barnett and Robertson among the SEC’s top five in minutes played and Jordan Geist, Kevin Puryear and Jontay Porter all averaging more than 25 per game. Jeremiah Tilmon plays as many minutes as he can before collecting five fouls. Porter Jr. is back now and played 23 minutes—more than the Tigers had planned due to a ridiculous amount of foul trouble against Georgia (if he hadn't played, Martin might have gone all Norman Dale and told the officials "my team is on the floor).
But Cullen VanLeer tore his ACL against Arkansas and is done for the season. Martin has used Reed Nikko to steal eight minutes per game in the post and has turned to walk-on guard Brett Rau, who has played 16 of his 37 minutes in the last three games (ten of the previous 21 came in a blowout of Wagner).
In other words, this is one of the NCAA Tournament’s thinner rosters. Martin goes into the dance (and, yes, we’re making the assumption Mizzou hears its name called tomorrow night) with seven scholarship players. One of them averages eight minutes and 2.4 points per game. Another has played 23 minutes after nearly four months of rehabbing from back surgery.
Missouri’s next loss will be its last. There is nothing to hold back. Porter Jr. will play until he can’t. Same goes for Jontay Porter, Puryear, Robertson, Tilmon and Geist. In news that would have shocked nearly everyone four months ago, Nikko and Rau will almost certainly play in an NCAA Tournament game.
Cuonzo Martin has done a masterful job this season. If Missouri’s still playing a week from now, what he accomplished over the first four months of the season was just the tip of the iceberg.