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BanditVol
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« Reply #2 on: March 20, 2014, 08:30:44 EDT » |
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I have mostly refrained from commenting on the coaching, but...
It's easy to forget that two years ago the program was in shambles. The two best players left, the rest of the team had little or no morale, and Cuonzo had to follow arguably the most popular basketball coach...and perhaps COACH, period, in UT history. Everyone gave him a pass, but I think the season was still disappointing. But should it have been? I mean, looking back, I think it went about how it should have, given the circumstances.
The following season, having built the offense around Maymon (which I thought was a bad idea, but...), there was no Maymon. Conventional wisdom says that past a certain point, the Maymon injury was not an excuse. That is certainly true, but at the end of the day, being without Maymon DID matter, and Stokes was still developing. Could we have done better last year? Certainly...but we did only miss the NCAA by the narrowest margin.
I guess I would say first season, who cares, the program was in shambles and Cuonzo had to pick up the pieces. Unbelievably, some would point to Pearl's first year and say that he exceeded expectations so Martin should have also. That is just BEYOND ridiculous. Pearl exceeded expectations because he was an outstanding coach following a bad coach. Should Cuonzo follow the best coach in Tennessee history after it's two best players quit and morale is destroyed and exceed expectations? GMAFB!
So now to this season. Were there unexpected losses? Yes, but also a couple wins we didn't expect also (or maybe just one?). Could his performance for most of the season be described as mediocre? Absolutely. But this run at the end is nice.
For whatever reason, Cuonzo Martin has been for the last three years a guy that is mediocre and struggles at times for much of the season, then turns it on at the end. If that part at the end often involves deep tourney runs, then who cares? Of course, the danger is that because of part A, the unexpected lapses and mediocrity earlier in the season, we might not MAKE the tourney. That's an obvious downside and with the talent we are losing this year....
But I do want to say that I think fans are forgetting to factor out 2011-12, his first year. Anyone with expectations of ANYTHING that year was on crack. And while it's much less of a factor, Maymon was in fact out all last season, and he was our leading returning scorer if I am not mistaken.
Is it possible that it just took Cuonzo this long to get his shizzle together?
LOL! I say no, he is kind of mediocre other than at the end of the season, but a deep run in this tourney (which likely would include an upset of Duke) could change my perception of that.
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