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Interesting take on Cuonzo Martin's last year in the MVC

Y

yoda

Well-known member
Kinda trashes the players he had last year -- LINK
...
"It didn't take a basketball savant to recognize that the Bears lacked the talent necessary to win at a high level"
...I like where we're at right now..."This is a totally different team," Martin said. "It's a team that's built to win, a team that will have success."
 
yoda said:
Kinda trashes the players he had last year -- LINK
...
"It didn't take a basketball savant to recognize that the Bears lacked the talent necessary to win at a high level"
...I like where we're at right now..."This is a totally different team," Martin said. "It's a team that's built to win, a team that will have success."
Click to expand...
Wow, that is a complete 180 from what he said prior to last season.
Recall that when the preseason poll was announced, and Missouri State was picked 11th in the poll, Cuonzo Martin was miffed and said:
"If we have the 11th best team in the Missouri Valley Conference, then this will be the best season in Missouri Valley Conference history," Martin said during the team's annual media day.
https://www.news-leader.com/story/s...nois-state-valley-conference-usa/79349555007/

Well, Missouri State didn't finish 11th, they finished 12th, dead last by a mile. Their 2-18 conference record wasn't even close to the 11th place team, Valparaiso (6-14). Good luck this year, Coach!

1750379387425.png
 
Missouri State's fortunes abruptly turned south at the end of the 2021-22 season. (23-11, 2nd place in the MVC)
Recall, even tho Dana Ford seemed to always have poor coaching decisions late in games, and that caused him a lot of losses
in games he should have won - at least he always had some of the BEST talent in the league - Moseley, Black, Sharp, Prim, Ridder, Mason, Clay, Benson, Mogbo...

Then his top assistant, Corey Gipson, left to take the job at Northwestern State then Austn Peay - and in the process - lured just about
EVERY single talented kid with him, leaving Dana's cupboard bare at a time that was so late in the recruiting cycle that he was offering
scholarships to absolute nobodies. As a result, what looked to be a promising 2022-23 and 2023-24 were bad years that led to Ford's firing at the end of 2023-24.

Meanwhile, Gipson had an excellent 22-win year at Northwestern State with all that MVC-caliber talent, then jumped to the job at APSU,
with many of those talented kid going with him again.

Personally, I thought Dana was an OK guy, despite being an ISU-er, and what happened to him with his own friend and top assistant stabbing him in the back & robbing all his talent - was pretty sad.
Fortunately for Dana, he was quickly offered an assistant spot at SMU where he's probably making nearly as much $$ as an assistant
as he was making at Missouri State as their head coach ($480K).
 
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