When building Missouri State basketball’s roster for its first season in Conference USA, coach Cuonzo Martin didn’t feel the need to adjust anything based on the league.
It’s still basketball, in Martin’s eyes. A jumpshot inside the arc still counts as two points, and shooting beyond it counts as three.
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“You have to build the way you build,” Martin said. “If I get consumed with what everyone else is doing, we’ll be in trouble. My job is to build it in the way I know how to build it, and we’ll be successful doing it.”
Martin will enter Conference USA with an overhauled roster, which is much-needed after a dreadful final run through the Missouri Valley Conference, where the Bears finished in last place during the regular season and were eliminated in the first round at Arch Madness.
Martin is confident that this year will be better, when most who watched will say it would be hard to be worse. According to several metrics, Conference USA ranked ahead of the Valley in the previous season.
Gone are the rivalries the diehard Missouri State fans have come to love, whether it be a trip over to Southern Illinois or taking on Ben Jacobson’s Northern Iowa squads. Air travel to league opponents Florida International and Delaware will soon become the norm.
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Here are some things to know about Conference USA after Missouri State became an official member this week:
Missouri State junior Michael Osei-Bonsu shoots a field goal as the Bears took on the UT Arlington Mavericks at Great Southern Bank Arena on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024.
Liberty basketball will be Conference USA favorite in 2025-26
There’s little argument that Liberty has best positioned itself to repeat as Conference USA’s top team heading into this season. The Flames have continuity from a league champion that lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Liberty was quick to announce the return of Colin Porter, Zach Cleveland and Kaden Matheny once its season ended. Metheny was the team’s second-leading scorer, averaging 13.3 points. Cleveland averaged 11 points and a team-high 6.3 rebounds.
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As a team, Liberty made 10 threes per game, while attempting 27.4, the 29th most in college basketball with the 15th-best average. Matheny averaged three of the makes, with Porter at 1.5. Although the Flames were among the teams shooting the most two-point shots, they were efficient, boasting the fifth-best shooting percentage. Defensively, they held opponents to 28.8% from deep, the fifth-best mark in the country.
Most of Conference USA’s all-league teams have graduated or transferred
The entire All-CUSA first team has either graduated or transferred. The second team returners only consist of Kennesaw State’s Simeon Cottle and Liberty’s Matheny.
There was great talent in CUSA in 2024-25 that would have ranked among the best in the MVC. The league’s Player of the Year, Jaron Pierre Jr., out of Jax State, transferred to SMU after the season. Sam Houston’s Lamar Wilkerson signed with Indiana, and Kennesaw State’s freshman of the year guard, Adrian Wooley, is now at Louisville.
Here are Conference USA’s most notable transfers
Conference USA programs did a solid job of adding former four-star prospects. It’s not a surprise to see Western Kentucky reloading in the second year of a coaching tenure, and its transfer class includes a former fourth-ranked JUCO player in the nation in Noah Boyde.
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Size was a key emphasis for most programs, adding centers from 6-foot-9 to 6-foot-11 from their previous Division I stops. Those were hot commodities in the heat of recruitment battles nationwide.
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Delaware: Jameel Brown (Temple)
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Jax State: Jaye Nash (Tulsa)
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Kennesaw State: Davin Cosby (Wake Forest)
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Liberty: Ryan Jones Jr. (Virginia Tech)
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Louisiana Tech: Sir Isaac Herron (Oral Roberts)
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Middle Tennessee: Jahvin Carter (Penn State)
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New Mexico State: Cyr Malonga (East Carolina)
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Sam Houston: Justin Begg (George Mason)
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Sam Houston: Isaiah Manning (TCU)
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Western Kentucky: Cam Haffner (Evansville)
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Western Kentucky: Noah Boyde (LSU)
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Western Kentucky: Grant Newell (North Texas)
Missouri State Bears Head Coach Cuonzo Martin during an exhibition game against the Southwest Baptist Bearcats at Great Southern Bank Arena on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024.
Where Missouri State basketball would have ranked in Conference USA in 2024-25
Final KenPom national rankings
Here are some notable Conference USA basketball coaches
There wasn’t a single coaching change in Conference USA this offseason. The league’s newest coach is Hank Plona of Western Kentucky, who took over at WKU last season after Steve Lutz left the program to become the head coach at Oklahoma State. Plona was promoted after a season as an assistant at WKU, having notably served as the head coach at Indian Hills (JUCO) from 2015-23.
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Liberty coach Ritchie McKay is the longest-tenured coach in the league, currently in his second stint with the Flames, which began in 2015. He has previous head coaching stops at Portland State, Colorado State, Oregon State and New Mexico. His first stint at Liberty was from 2007-09, before he became Virginia’s associate head coach from 2009-15. He has three NCAA Tournament appearances, and might have made a fourth with a 30-4 team that was entering the pandemic-canceled tournament.
Middle Tennessee’s Nick McDevitt has had some success, leading the Blue Raiders to an NIT appearance last year in his seventh season. They went from a five-win team in 2020-21 to winning 26 the following season.
It wouldn’t be far-fetched to say Martin will enter the league as its most accomplished coach.
What Cuonzo Martin said he’s seen on film from Conference USA opponents
“For me, when I study film, it’s the style of the coach and it’s the style of what they do now. Whether the personnel is good enough or not, I just try to study the style in which they operate, when they call timeouts, how the game flows, how they run and ball screens.
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“There are more styles. I’ve seen several teams run a 1-3-1 defense, which I’ve seen before. There are so many different styles; it’s a really good league. They lost a lot of talented players to high-major programs and they obviously brought good ones in. Basketball is basketball. You’ll probably see more of a 1-3-1 defense, but other than that, offense is offense.”
This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Will Missouri State basketball challenge in Conference USA debut?
