Cuonzo Martin is back in the Southeastern Conference, but on Wednesday the new Missouri men’s basketball coach said he may never have left the league in the first place, had his personal circumstances been different.
Martin, who coached Tennessee from 2011 to 2014, appeared on Paul Finebaum’s radio show during a break in the SEC’s spring meetings in Destin, Fla. He told Finebaum his family was the deciding factor in leaving Knoxville after guiding the Vols to the NCAA tournament’s Sweet 16 in 2014.
“If I was single, I probably would have stayed at Tennessee,” Martin said. “But when you make decisions based on your family, to me that is the most important thing in doing this.”
Martin turned down a contract extension and a raise from former Tennessee athletic director Dave Hart and left to coach at the University of California, Berkeley after a tumultuous run in Knoxville that included a petition signed by roughly 40,000 fans asking for the return of former Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl.
The 45-year-old husband and father of three told ESPN in 2015 that he had cameras installed in and around his family’s Knoxville home as the clamoring for Pearl’s return grew louder.