OPINION |
Forty days into his second tenure as Missouri State’s basketball coach, Cuonzo Martin’s office walls remain bare. There’s been no time to decorate and, even if there was, those chores fall to Roberta Martin.
“My wife is a lot more talented at decorating than I am,” Martin said with a laugh. “She’ll make it look nice at some point.”
Priorities like assembling a roster from nearly scratch and hiring a coaching staff have been Martin’s focus. Things are starting to come together as both the playing and coaching rosters are just about full as Martin sets out on his mission to restore the Bears as a contender.
I sat down with Martin in his basement office inside Great Southern Bank Arena for a half-hour on May 9 and was struck by how pumped he is to be back on campus. The coach at Missouri State from 2008-11 led the program to its lone Missouri Valley Conference regular-season championship in his final season.
Martin not intimidated by navigating transfer portal
After coaching at Tennessee, California and Missouri, it’s a different-looking landscape for Martin this time around. The transfer portal has turned college athletics upside down. It is seen as a negative by most coaches.
Not Martin, who seems to find the process exhilarating.
”Like anything in our sport, it’s talent,” Martin said of his starting point in assembling a roster. “You’re looking to identify what you need in a program. This is a great campus when you’re starting from scratch. This has been a lot of fun for me.
“I know a lot of coaches have really struggled with this new world. It is what it is, so there’s no point in complaining about it. So for me, it’s been great.”
Martin said he and his assistants try to learn as much about potential recruits as possible by talking to those who know them. He said he wants guys who have mental toughness in a world filled with social media negativity, plus leadership qualities.
“You don’t have to be the loudest guy in the room,” Martin said, “but do you have the ability to lead through tough times? Do you show true leadership and true grit when we hit the storms? Can you stay the course on our bad days instead of on the backside your parents are tweeting certain things about other players and the coaching staff? Can you maintain the locker room?
“Just the ability to put ’em all together. That’s the science of it all, can you put all those things together.”
Saying farewell to ‘Groundhog Day' routine
Whether Missouri State has a winning — let alone a championship — season in 2024-25 is anybody’s guess at this point. But it won’t be for a lack of hunger to succeed on Martin’s part. Two years out of the coaching profession clearly have him recharged.
After being fired at Missouri after the 2021-22 season, Martin said the next two years out of coaching were among the happiest of his adult life. He and Roberta moved to Orlando, Florida, where youngest child Addison went to high school.
Martin laughed about his daily routine, comparing it to the movie “Groundhog Day.”
“We would get up in the morning, my wife and I, and for the first year I would drive Addison to school,” Martin said. “After that, we would walk our dog and then we would go work out together. Around 10:30 or 11, we’d eat breakfast, then do spiritual reading or writing. Around 1 or 1:30 we’d have to go pick up Addison from school.
“It was the same routine, but it was peaceful.”
Martin also enjoyed consulting, mostly with high school coaches and college assistants, to pass along some of his lessons learned in the business. He wrote in a journal daily and started the podcast “It All Counts,” sharing his insights on leadership and personal development.
Coaching itch returned in his second year out
(Photo by Jym Wilson)
There were offers to return to coaching, but he had little desire at that time to get back in. Only once was he seriously tempted.
“One I was really leaning to,” Martin said, calling it an “historic program” that piqued his interest. “But when I got off the phone — you know that nauseating feeling in your stomach? I had to call the guy back and say, ‘Nah, I can’t do it.’ It wasn’t in my heart.
“I was still getting paid from a previous university, so why would I go and work and neglect the time I could spend with my family? That’s very selfish of me to do that.”
But during his second year out, the itch to get back into coaching started to increase.
“It was like a peace that came over me, that this was probably over,” Martin said of the Groundhog Day lifestyle. When Missouri State let Dana Ford go after the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament, athletic director Kyle Moats called a few days later to measure Martin’s interest.
Martin had stayed in contact with several people in Springfield over the years and still had a love for the school that gave him his first head-coaching shot 16 years prior. It never crossed his mind about coming back as head coach. In fact, he often texted encouragement to Ford and rooted for him to succeed.
But Moats’ call intrigued him. Momentum picked up from there and Martin was introduced as the Bears’ new coach, part two on April 1. It’s been a whirlwind since.
“For me, it’s been fun times,” Martin said.
Full roster, coaching staff nearly in place
As of May 9, Martin had either signed or received verbal commitments from 11 new players. With holdovers Nick Kramer and Tommy Pinegar, the roster is nearly full. So is the staff, with one assistant hiring to come. He said that person already is in place, completing some current commitments before he’s able to come aboard.
“People are going to really like our final hire,” Martin said.
Martin hopes that fans will like the playing roster as much as he does.
“I like our roster and its makeup,” Martin said. “I’m excited to really get started. It feels like you’re doing it for the first time. I enjoy it. Every year is different. I don’t care if you bring everybody back, it’s always different.”
‘I get most of my joy in practice'
Martin said it’s a reality that players are going to explore options at the end of each season. With the transfer portal and Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) the days of four-year players at one school will be rare.
“It used to be you had a young man from 2-5 years and you developed him, his life skills and all that stuff,” Martin said. “Now, I look at it like this: One year with me and you’ll be a better person. I have to give you everything I’ve got so now, you’re in my program for one year and then … if you go to another program, you just made that program better and you made society better … well, I did my part.”
This summer will be big. Players will be on campus May 30 with eight weeks of practice allowed until a late-July break before the start of the fall semester.
Then the man who awakens each morning at 4 a.m. and is headed to the office by 6 will really be pumped once the basketballs start bouncing and the shoes start squeaking.
“I love it,” Martin said of gym time with his team. “I get most of my joy in practice. I want to see a young man develop, see them compete and grow.”
MSU's campus and the surrounding are great recruiting tools
Meanwhile, Martin said he and Roberta are excited to settle back into the Springfield community, 13 years after he left. Now that the roster is nearly completed, he’s able to appreciate the surroundings.
“My first time around, I was just going, going, going,” Martin said. “Then you’re removed from it and you realize how that was a great place to raise a family.”
Martin noted several new apartment complexes around campus and the Betty and Bobby Allison South complex for Bears’ soccer south of Great Southern Bank Arena. The look of campus — and the surrounding community — is a great recruiting tool.
“The most impressive to me is the downtown area,” Martin said of a striking difference from his first tour. “That’s high level. I don’t recall spending time downtown in my previous three years unless I had to attend a function. Now I spend a lot of time down there. I’m looking at real estate and might want to live down there.”
Missouri State men’s basketball recruits (as of May 10, 2024)
- Allen Udemadu, 6-10 forward, Morgan State (one year remaining)
- Jalen Hampton, 6-7 forward, South Plains Junior College (two years)
- Dez White, 6-2 guard, Austin Peay University (three years)
- Wesley Oba, 6-8 forward, Delaware State (one year)
- Vincent Brady II, 6-4 guard, IUPUI (two years)
- Sam Murray II, 6-9 forward, Murray State (two years)
- Mozae Downing-Rivers, 6-6 guard, Barton County College (two years)
- Michael Osoi-Bonsu, 6-4 forward, Vincennes University (two years)
- Zaxton King, 6-2 guard, Lawrence (Kan.) High School (four years)
- Jurrell Baldwin, 6-7 forward, Chicago Hyde Park Academy (four years)
- C.J. Gaines, 5-9 guard, Savannah (Ga.) Calvary Day (four years)
Returning from last season’s team
- Nick Kramer, 6-3 guard, St. Louis University High (three years)
- Tommy Pinegar, 6-2 guard, Greenwood High (three years)
