A 76-68 loss to LSU in the second round of the Southeastern Conference tournament has ended the Missouri Tigers season, and the coaching tenure of Cuonzo Martin, who was fired Friday. Athletic Director Desiree Reed-Francois said in a statement that the search for a new coach will begin immediately.
Martin was hired in 2017, replacing Kim Anderson, with the subsequent additions of high-profile recruits like Michael Porter Jr. adding sizzle to the floundering program. However, injuries and chemistry short-circuited the rebuild, with departures due to transfers crippling Martin’s program by the end of his tenure.
After a successful playing career at Purdue University, Martin has found moderate success at the Division 1 coaching level, with stints at Missouri State, Tennessee, California, and now Missouri. He led the Tigers to a pair of trips to the NCAA Tournament, but the 2020-2021 squad was generally viewed as underachieving, with a veteran group falling to Oklahoma in the first-round of the tourney.
Missouri will continue in its quest to find the stability and success that the basketball program once enjoyed under Norm Stewart. There have been good years and even the occasional tournament success, but Quin Snyder, Mike Anderson, Frank Haith, Kim Anderson, and now Cuonzo Martin failed to find the steady success of the Stewart years from the 1970s through the 1990s.
