Tennessee basketball: Rick Barnes should hire Cuonzo Martin or Frank Martin as assistant

The coaching carousel in the SEC has already begin. Men’s basketball is setting expectations similar to football, and just this week three head coaches are gone. One of them is former Tennessee basketball head coach Cuonzo Martin, who parted ways with the Missouri Tigers.

Meanwhile, the Mississippi State Bulldogs fired Ben Howland, the South Carolina Gamecocks fired Frank Martin, the LSU Tigers fired Will Wade, and the Georgia Bulldogs fired Tom Crean. The Florida Gators are in the market for a coach after losing Mike White to UGA.

All of this is a huge opportunity for Tennessee basketball. The Vols just lost assistant coach Mike Schwartz to the East Carolina Pirates. For his replacement, they should hire one of the former Martins, including their former head coach in Cuonzo Martin, as an assistant to Rick Barnes.

This may sound crazy, but based on what Barnes will need for the future, it lines up perfectly. Schwartz was the defensive mastermind for the Vols, which is a huge reason they were so successful this year. It’s been his calling card ever since arriving at UT in 2016.

Simply put, Barnes needs a new assistant who specializes in defense. Say what you want about either of the Martins as head coaches, nobody will doubt their defensive prowess. Cuonzo Martin turned the Vols into a Sweet 16 team in 2014 specifically because of the defense, and he was successful with an absolute refusal to play zone.

During his first three years at Mizzou, his teams never allowed 70 points a game on average. They did the past two years, but everybody gets an excuse with COVID in 2020-2021, and there were injuries facing the team this past year. Generally, his team’s play elite defense.

On the other side, Frank Martin took South Carolina to the Final Four in 2017 specifically with his defensive coaching, and he took the Kansas State Wildcats to four NCAA Tournaments in five years, including an Elite Eight appearance.

In seven of 10 seasons at South Carolina, Martin’s teams gave up fewer than 70 points a game. Again, like Cuonzo Martin, this is his speciality, what he prides his programs on, and outside of the weird COVID year, his teams’ defenses are usually superb and extremely well-coached.

If Barnes is looking for the guy who can coach his players up to play defense properly, he should go for Cuonzo Martin. However, Frank Martin is the guy if his focus is on who can draw up the right defenses based on his opponents each night.

Then there’s the factor as to who he could get. Cuonzo Martin may not want to come back to Rocky Top. After all, his last year, despite reaching the Sweet 16, was a tough year for everybody, and the hurt feelings may be too deep for anybody to just get over.

Either way, Tennessee basketball can make a high-profile assistant coach hire this offseason, as two longtime SEC head coaches are in the market who specialize in exactly what the Vols will be looking for. If Barnes could get one, it would be a huge coup for the Vols.