Cuonzo Martin leaves Cal for Missouri

A new head coach will be heading to the Pac-12

After losing in the first round of the NIT to Cal State Bakersfield, the California Golden Bears have now lost their head coach.

Cuonzo Martin appears to be heading back to the SEC, agreeing to a seven-year, $21 million contract with the Missouri Tigers.

According to ESPN’s Paul Finebaum, Martin also had an $18 million contract offer from Illinois that he turned down.

Martin has the big offers after doing less with more at Cal. He brought in giant recruiting classes, but then never put it together in-season to have the success that the talent in Berkeley should have.

He is consistently a .600 winning percentage coach, putting up overall records of 61-41 at Missouri State, 63-41 at Tennessee, and 62-39 at Cal, all over the course of three seasons at each school.

This leaves the Pac-12 with one coaching vacancy after Washington decided to keep Lorenzo Romar after the worst season in school history. UW has also gone six years without being a tournament team.

It’ll be interesting to see what Cal does. Last year, Stanford brought in Jerod Haase, who seemed to have done a good job at developing his team this year. So the Bears will have that to go up against locally now.

The Pac-12 is losing one of the underachieving coaches, which could turn out to be a good thing for everyone.

from Arizona Desert Swarm - All Posts http://ift.tt/2noMjyU
via IFTTT