Cuonzo Martin finds himself in a familiar position just a few months after returning as Missouri State’s head basketball coach.
Every head coaching stop, whether during his first stint at Missouri State, his time at Tennessee, California or Mizzou, Martin has always dealt with a change in athletics director.
In 2009, Bill Rowe retired before Missouri State hired Kyle Moats. Most recently, when he was coaching at Mizzou, Jim Sterk stepped down before it hired Desiree Reed-Francois, who fired Martin a year later.
Martin now steps into the head coaching job at Missouri State which is without an athletics director. Moats will depart for Eastern Kentucky less than three months after handing the coach a five-year, $3.2 million guaranteed contract.
Moats will start at EKU on July 1. After landing Missouri State a spot in Conference USA ahead of the 2025-26 season, Moats will move to Kentucky to work with his son who was already on EKU’s staff as its senior associate AD for compliance and student success.
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“It’s a tremendous move, in my opinion, based off what he said. His family,” Martin said. “You can’t beat that. Anytime you have opportunities to make a move and your family is involved, not only being with you, but on the job site, that’s incredible. I’m so happy for his family and I think they’ll be great and he’ll do great things.”
Martin finds himself more secure with his current athletics director change than his last. The school said it hopes to have a new AD in place by late July or early August with Brent Dunn, MSU’s Vice President for University Advancement, leading the search for Moats’ replacement. A search committee is expected to include administrators, coaches, student-athletes and community members.
“I don’t really consume myself with those types of things because my job is the task at hand and I’ve been around the block before,” Martin said. “I’ll give them my two cents if anyone asks me that. My job is to do my job. At 52, I understand how it goes. Every place I’ve gone, whether it had been a year or six months, there was a new AD. There’s a new president everywhere I’ve gone. It’s part of it. It’s easy-flowing to me. It’s just a part of the job in the sports world. My focus is simply these players in this program.”
If someone were to ask Martin what he would want in his new boss, the coach said he wants someone who truly wants to be at Missouri State and would be consumed with the job.
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Martin said Missouri State has done a great job building the campus and the community infrastructure. In the years he’s been away from MSU since leading the Bears to a Missouri Valley Conference regular season title in 2011, he said he thinks the community has grown and he’d like to see it continue its pace. He wants his next boss to understand the importance of the job and the importance of the athletics program in the community.
“If you’re an athletic director, you’re the CEO of every program,” Martin said. “That entails a lot. You have to have a great team around you. No coach is good without great assistants, so I think your whole team has to be good, and whoever that is, he or she, we have to give them time to implement their style, whatever they want to do and how they go about their business.
“I’m happy for both sides, because again, sometimes change is good. I think change is good for Kyle Moats, who said it himself, so it’s probably good for everybody.”