Clean haircuts, made beds: Every detail matters to Mizzou coach Cuonzo Martin

The moment seemed primed for praise.

Missouri basketball coach Cuonzo Martin had taken junior forward Kevin Puryear out of the starting lineup in hopes of helping Puryear “relax.” In his third game since Martin made the move, Puryear finished with a double-double in a win over Tennessee.

Yet Martin refused to celebrate the decision to take Puryear out of the starting lineup. When Martin heard the word he had once used — relax — in questions about Puryear, the coach flipped it around.

“I don’t want any guy to be happy coming off the bench,” Martin said.

Martin rarely offers many compliments for his players in interviews and often he finds something to critique. Even after walk-on Adam Wolf hit a three-pointer in a blowout victory, Martin said Wolf didn’t defend well.

This is the manifestation of a philosophy. Martin, to sometimes comical extremes, believes every detail matters — even the ones off the basketball court.

When one of Martin’s best players at Tennessee, Josh Richardson, littered his apartment with takeout boxes, Martin told him he was playing poorly because his living space was dirty.

“That room,” Martin said after shaking his head. “… Down the stretch of the game, if you make your bed in the morning, it equates to your success on the floor. Not whether you win or lose a game, but I can trust you on the floor because you’re doing the little things to be successful.”

Graduate transfer Kassius Robertson called Martin the toughest coach he’s ever had. Puryear said it took some teammates “some time” to adjust to Martin.

“I wouldn’t say it’s my first experience with someone criticizing me — but I’ve never had a coach like Coach Martin,” Puryear said.

Martin will sometimes pull players off the court right after a mistake, only to put them in about a minute later, once they have either settled down … or once a teammate has made another substitution-worthy mistake.

He learned to be this way, in part, from playing and coaching under Gene Keady, who said he treated his players how his father treated him, “fair but firm.” They were supposed to keep him happy, not the other way around.

Martin carries himself the same way. After a win over St. John’s, Martin called out highly touted freshman point guard Blake Harris, who eventually transferred during winter break. In front of the rest of the team, Martin told Harris that he needed to focus on Mizzou, not himself.

At Purdue, Martin bought in to Keady’s style immediately. He didn’t argue when Keady told him not to shoot during his first year playing for the Boilermakers, when he really couldn’t shoot.

“He was tough,” Keady said of Martin. “He didn’t take it personal.”

And Martin expected his teammates to act the same way.

During Purdue’s win over Kansas in the 1994 NCAA Tournament, Martin, a junior, yelled for Keady to take a teammate out of the game because he wasn’t playing defense. So Keady did.

“You don’t hear that very often,” said Keady, who is retired after 27 years of being a head coach. During that time, he learned that “the kids who have tough mothers tend to be the best players.”

When Martin complained about washing dishes or mopping, Sandra Martin, who worked as a hotel maid, tried to remind her son that there was a greater purpose in chores. He needed to learn to do these things, she told him, because one day he could own a house of his own.

Now, when Martin returns to his home late after games, he checks the dishwasher. He might mop. He keeps a small can of paint that he can use to touch up scratches on the walls.

His mother had a saying she would repeat to her children: Take care of it, and it’ll take care of you.

“It could be anything,” said Valencia Martin, one of the coach’s sisters. And anything can be a teaching moment for Cuonzo Martin.

Miss an assignment during practice? He’ll mention how you missed class a few days ago. Wake up late on a game day and start the first half sluggish? He’ll point that out during a timeout.

“Some coaches say, ‘I see everything,’ ” said Jordan McRae, one of his players at Tennessee. “ … Coach Martin would literally see everything.”

Martin isn’t a unpleasable grump. He has said freshman Jeremiah Tilmon can be as good as the best center in the NBA, and Martin has called point guard Jordan Geist someone he would want to bring with him to a back-alley scuffle. Perhaps by dispensing these compliments infrequently, they mean more.

When a play satisfies Martin, his players know. He is the Tigers’ greatest cheerleader on the sideline. He yells and stomps and punches the air.

“You can see him,” Puryear said. “He’s fired up. That gets us fired up.”

Missouri is hunting for its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2013, and Martin is leading the Tigers while also trying to implement a culture that will last for as long as he is here.

“He cares about us, and we know he does,” Puryear said. “There’s no need to take it personally at all.”

He’s right — because no one is immune to Martin’s ways. Not even Martin’s children.

About two hours before Mizzou’s game in November against West Virginia, arguably the Tigers’ toughest opponent this season, Martin decided he needed to cut his son Chase’s hair.

Luckily, Martin had brought a set of clippers with him — because no detail goes unchecked.

This story was originally published January 23, 2018 at 4:29 PM with the headline "Clean haircuts, made beds: Every detail matters to Mizzou coach Cuonzo Martin."