Martin made the most of the opportunity, leading the Wildcats to their first NCAA appearance in 12 seasons in his first year as head coach in He went on to compile a record in his five seasons in Manhattan, including three more NCAA appearances, making him the second winningest coach in Kansas State history, behind only the legendary Tex Winter.
It is true that Martin and Currie were not bosom buddies - in fact, far from it. Martin made it known that he did not care for Currie's micromanagement of the basketball program and the fact that Martin was not a hire of Currie's only added to the relationship gap between the two men. Martin did not agree with the decision and was further angered because, he said, he was not a participant in the decision. The Kansas City Star , citing a source who is close to Martin, reported in the Tuesday edition of the newspaper that Martin did not feel he had the full support of his athletic director and president at Kansas State and he did not feel he had the freedom and the trust of the K-State administration to perform his job as coach to the best of his ability.
This most definitely was a factor that opened Martin's eyes to the possibilities of new challenges elsewhere, but in my opinion it was only a contributing factor, not the predominant one. Coaches like Martin are motivated by the recruiting and teaching aspects of the game, by the opportunity to work with young men and not only help them become better basketball players but good people, as well. They thrive on the challenges that present themselves in this process and the opportunity to build a winning program that is recognized for its competitive nature as well as the ability to achieve a sustainable level of success on and off the court.
Martin said as much in the press conference at South Carolina on Tuesday officially introducing him as the new head coach of the Gamecocks. I run to them. I always have. Let's not kid ourselves, it's also about the money, as is usually the case. It's also about scale Which is something Martin fully expects to do. Why not? Everyone always said I was going to fail when I got the K-State job. Let me go take one of the craziest jobs that I possibly can take and figure out and see if I'm man enough to get this done,'" Martin said.
Disputes notwithstanding, Martin praised Currie — now the athletics director at Wake Forest — for the work he did turning around K-State's athletics department.
He opened everyone's minds to thinking that it's OK to think bigger, because at K-State, the one thing was that everyone wanted to say, 'We're little K-State. The big-picture ideas for the athletics department just didn't mesh with Martin's vision for the men's basketball program.
I'm not a flavor for everybody," Martin said. I'm ethical. I'm a good man. I do things the right way. I don't cheat. But when it comes time to coaching and the way I manage things, I get the fact that John had to 'get used to me,' for lack of better words. Since leaving K-State, Martin has gone Though he's only made one NCAA Tournament with the Gamecocks in eight seasons, he made it count: He led the program to its first Final Four in history in , falling to Gonzaga in the national semifinal.
He's already the third-winningest coach, in terms of victories, in South Carolina's annals. And he owns the third-best winning percentage among coaches who spent five or more seasons in Columbia, S. The Wildcats never finished worst than fifth in the regular-season standings in what was still a team Big And perhaps most impressively, Martin went overall. His winning percentage of.
I don't want to say yes. I don't want to say no," Martin said. The only thing Martin could say with certainty: South Carolina — or any other potential suitors — wouldn't have been able to get in his ear as easily if Samuels had played. Listen to Martin's full interview with Sports Radio by clicking the embedded widget below. Sorry , an error occurred. Get Started. Log In. You are logged in. Switch accounts. Offers go here. Choose wisely! We won't share it with anyone else. If you forget it, you'll be able to recover it using your email address.
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