I'm not sure how he was truly embraced. If he wasn't fully embraced, people should be ashamed, because the guy is a heck of a person, he's a heck of a basketball coach.
KNOXVILLE - When Cuonzo Martin was the Tennessee men's basketball coach for three seasons, the program's motto was "tougher breed."
Now in his first season at Missouri, Martin's style still reflects the hard-nosed mentality he is known for. Tennessee faces its former coach Wednesday night for the first time since Martin left Knoxville for California after leading the Volunteers to the 2014 Sweet 16.
The Southeastern Conference game will be at Columbia, Mo., tipping off at 9 EST on the SEC Network.
"I think his teams embody who he is, if you go back and look at him as a player and the way he played and what he wants out of his players," Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said Monday. "There's no doubt in my mind that he continues to do a great job there. I said it a year ago that I think it's a great situation. They hired a great person to come in. He's already proven in a short time that he can recruit there and get great players to play hard."
The Tigers are 12-5 (2-2 SEC) in Martin's first year, having already surpassed last year's 8-24 record, in spite of what is believed to be a season-ending injury to star freshman Michael Porter Jr.
Barnes went on to say that he would "like to think" that people appreciated the job Martin did during his three years at Tennessee.
"Because I think he did really a terrific job," Barnes said. "I'm not sure how he was truly embraced. If he wasn't fully embraced, people should be ashamed, because the guy is a heck of a person, he's a heck of a basketball coach."
Williams honored
Tennessee forward Grant Williams was named SEC player of the week on Monday.
Williams, a sophomore, scored a career-high 37 points in Tennessee's 92-84 win at Vanderbilt last Tuesday. It was the most points scored by an SEC player in a league game this season and the most scored in a road game by a Tennessee player since Allan Houston scored 37 at Oregon State in 1990.
Williams scored just nine points in Saturday's 75-62 victory over Texas A&M.
"He still did a lot of good things," Barnes said. "He missed some shots. I think sometimes people look at the points as being the key factor. We want balance. We've got a lot of guys that we think can put points on the board if they play within the system that we're trying to get them to understand. Grant did some other things. As much as we need him to score, we need him to rebound and defend. We want him to be balanced."
Robert Hubbs III was the last Tennessee player to be named the league's player of the week. That came on Jan. 30 of last year after Hubbs scored 25 points in an upset win over Kentucky.
Moving up
The Vols moved from 24th to 21st in the updated Associated Press poll released Monday. Tennessee has fluctuated between 19th and 24th during its seven-week stay in the AP poll.
ESPN bracket guru Joe Lunardi slotted Tennessee as an NCAA tournament five seed in a projection he released Monday. In the projection, Tennessee's opening-round destination is Boise, Idaho.
Contact David Cobb at dcobb@timesfreepress.com.