Deputy Travis Junior said:

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Hop said:

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Deputy Travis Junior said:

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Goat Man said:

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You know you are right about Martin but did anyone actually say they thought BK was a better coach?

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Hop is the king of "what have you done for me lately?" so when Martin started out with 3 awful to bad seasons, Hop began saying that there was little evidence that Martin was better than Kennedy. For some reason, Hop didn't think Martin's KSU tenure counted. Nor did he think that Martin's starting situation was much different than Kennedy's.

Not sure how he arrived there. South Carolina was absolutely terrible when Martin arrived, and 4 tournament appearances in 5 years (one of which was an Elite Eight) is FAR better than anything Kennedy's ever done. The book is unequivocally closed, though. Martin is making his second Elite Eight appearance in 10 years. Kennedy has 1 Sweet 16 in 19 years, and it required a freaking miracle.

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I don't know whose resume' you are quoting, but this is Martin's first NCAA Tourney in his five seasons at USCe. What he did with Huggins' all-Americans a decade ago isn't relevant to what he's doing at USCe. The issue is can he recruit consistently to sustain this one year of success that is led by a pair of stud seniors.

Look, if you are going to compare results for a young coach at Centenary and SE Louisiana versus a guy that was promoted from within to take over a Big 12 program stocked with all-Americans, then we can;t have an objective debate.

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Hop, you're contradicting yourself in two sentences that are literally adjacent. Look at the text I bolded. In the first you say Martin's only been at SC for 5 years, and in the second you say his success at KSU came a decade ago. You were right the first time; Martin was in the round of 32 with KSU 5 years ago (another fun fact: he went 2-0 against A&M and Kennedy that year).

Your idea that Martin took over a loaded program is erroneous. Huggins took over for Woolridge, a below average coach who had 5-6 ~0.500 seasons at KSU, and then stayed at KSU for A SINGLE season. Then, after Huggins left, Martin was there for five seasons. In that time, he made the Elite Eight in year THREE with none of Huggins' guys, and then made the round of 32 in years four and five, also with none of Huggins' guys. I'm not trying to be rude, but attributing all of that success to a single Huggins season, which came of the coattails of a long stretch of KSU mediocrity, is patently ridiculous. Martin did ALL of that.

Finally, your entire premise that past success isn't relevant to current success simply doesn't make sense to me. Martin taught great fundamentals and smothering defense at KSU. Now his USC teams are exhibiting the same traits, and you think the two aren't related? I understand your point from a recruiting point of view, but actual coaching is not the afterthought that you seem to be making it out to be. In the same way that our discombobulated offense in year one predicted our discombobulated offense in year 6 (Kennedy is a very poor offensive coach), Martin's past coaching successes predicted this season's success.

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Lol anybody else notice there was no reply? Well done DTJ.

I've never been able to tell if Hop realized Frank Martin was an assistant at K-State and was promoted to head coach.

Can we just agree:

Frank Martin is a good coach who is a good recruiter.

Billy Kennedy is a mediocre coach who is a good recruiter.

That is all.

Trying to act like Kennedy is remotely as good a coach as Martin is laughable.

Frank Martin has done a great job of building a culture at SC of playing hard-nosed defense and playing sound fundamental basketball. It appears his program is really taking off. He'll lose some key seniors next year but he's probably recruited the type of players that he wants in his program who will be ready to step in. Good for SC and SEC basketball.

Hop said:

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Double Diamond said:

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Martin built KSU. Huggins was there for 12 months.

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Dead wrong....Huggins brought in stud 5-stars Beasley, Walker among others and that program was being stacked. Martin did not build up that program.

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1 year, Hop. 1 year! Martin was there for 5 years after Huggins left. If Louisville is kicking ass in year 5 of Petrino's tenure, not even the biggest "Core Values oh yea!!" Charlie Strong fanboy will be saying that it's due to Strong (and I'd bet dollars to cents that you rolled your eyes at that horn nonsense in years 2-3 of Petrino's tenure). So just admit you got into a silly spat with Lover/Ben Diamond over a year ago, overcommitted on some statements, and were ultimately wrong. It's not a big deal. We all said some dumb stuff when chatting with him.

Martin was successful for 5 years at KSU because Martin is a good coach. It wasn't all due to a magical 1 year transformation by Huggins. That's an absolutely ridiculous position; the roster timelines don't even add up.

zooguy96 said:

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Can we just agree:

Frank Martin is a good coach who is a good recruiter.

Billy Kennedy is a mediocre coach who is a good recruiter.

That is all.

Trying to act like Kennedy is remotely as good a coach as Martin is laughable.

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Mediocre is a bit kind. He has good to very good defenses, but his offenses only seem to work if he has great players at every position that can out-talent their counterparts. He regularly trots out dysfunctional lineups, and his in-game adjustments are meh overall (some good, but a fair number of bad too).

I think that works out to "below average" to "bad," but that's just me.

Just a comment on the Huggins/Frank Martin at KSU thing.

Frank Martin actually was interviewed on the ESPN Mike & mike show this morning, and Martin spent quite a bit of time thanking Huggins for helping him succeed at KSU.

He said that Huggins deliberately did not hire any KSU assistants when he left, and Martin said Beasley and the other recruits would have probably followed Huggins to West Virginia if he had pushed, but Huggins instead called all the recruits and asked them to stay at KSU.

Anyways, perhaps partly just coach speak stuff, but Martin seemed very grateful to Huggins for not poaching any assistants or recruits as he left for WVU, Martin said Huggins told him 'I will be okay regardless' and instead hired a completely brand new staff to WVU and did not mess with any of the KSU signees.

Blue Duck said:

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Billy Kennedy has stolen Hop's login info. That's the only logical explanation for his opinions.

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He was the exact same way back when he owned (?) the scout site.