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Fight On Montana Podcast- Lonnell Martin Jr. Interview

Adam H

Well-known member
Adam and Angel take a deep dive into Griz basketball with special guest and new member of Griz Nation Lonnell Martin Jr.  We dive into Lonnell's journey from Flint, Michigan to Montana. Lonnell talks about his recruitment to the Griz and what made him choose the Griz.  We also talk about what Lonnell can bring to the Griz and what he wants to accomplish. Check it on apple, google podcasts, spotify and much more. Make sure to rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast!

https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/98q2cq/LonnellMartinJr.mp3

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fight-on-montana/id1501297246
 
Just an honest question no intention of trolling. If you had to rate your feelings about Steadman, Gaskin, Parker, Satterwhite and Martin prior to them playing a game at UM, how would you have ranked them in terms of who you thought would be the most successful?
 
GrizBall said:
Just an honest question no intention of trolling. If you had to rate your feelings about Steadman, Gaskin, Parker, Satterwhite and Martin prior to them playing a game at UM, how would you have ranked them in terms of who you thought would be the most successful?

Well, I'm not Adam, but I would have ranked them Gaskin, Steadman, Parker and Satterwhite. The first two would have been 2 x Awesome's and Parker and Satterwhite would have only been 1 x Awesome.
 
PeauxRouge said:
GrizBall said:
Just an honest question no intention of trolling. If you had to rate your feelings about Steadman, Gaskin, Parker, Satterwhite and Martin prior to them playing a game at UM, how would you have ranked them in terms of who you thought would be the most successful?

Well, I'm not Adam, but I would have ranked them Gaskin, Steadman, Parker and Satterwhite. The first two would have been 2 x Awesome's and Parker and Satterwhite would have only been 1 x Awesome.

Where would you place Martin on the awesome scale?
 
GrizBall said:
PeauxRouge said:
Well, I'm not Adam, but I would have ranked them Gaskin, Steadman, Parker and Satterwhite. The first two would have been 2 x Awesome's and Parker and Satterwhite would have only been 1 x Awesome.

Where would you place Martin on the awesome scale?

For sure a 2 x Awesome so far.
 
I would have rated them this way before the season.
Gaskin
Steadman
Satterwhite
Parker
It was a bummer that it didn't work out but that is the risk you play with brining in players from the portal. They might not have bye in or their talents might not fit the system. I think that Martin has a lot of potential. Excited to see him play. Can see him being the missing wing piece that we have needed. He brings a shooting ability that we have missed. I do think that we are guard and wing heavy.
 
GrizBall said:
Just an honest question no intention of trolling. If you had to rate your feelings about Steadman, Gaskin, Parker, Satterwhite and Martin prior to them playing a game at UM, how would you have ranked them in terms of who you thought would be the most successful?
Gaskin
Steadman
Parker
Martin
Satterwhite
 
Admittedly I did not listen to the interview, so there may be stuff in it that changes my my initial thoughts but I would view my opinion as cautiously optimistic.

In general, I think there is less risk in bringing guys in from the D-1 portal than HS or JC. I think JC is the riskiest of the 3. You actually have tape to watch on guys playing in D-1 games. You have tons of D-1 coaches to call and get their opinion on guys. The strikeouts on Gaskin, Satterwhite, Henderson and Steadman I feel set the program back a few years. Gaskin, Steadman and Henderson basically took up 3 scholarships for two years for nothing in return.

I have never seen Otero play, but looking at the numbers it is my sense that it is not elite JC basketball (at least not like the Salt Lakes or College of Southern Idaho’s). Otero did not play a team ranked in the Top 40 of JC Basketball and their League’s representative in the JC national championships ( a team that beat Otero twice) was seeded 22nd out of 24 teams and lost in the first round to the 11th seed by 13.

In Otero’s 5 losses, which I assume to be against their toughest competition, Martin shot 32% from 3 and 39%FG. His freshman year he shot 26% from 3. Are we sure he is a knock down shooter? It would also appear that his light was pretty green as he averaged about 7 3PA a game. Contrast that to UM’s top 3pt shooter in Vasquez who averaged less than 4 attempts a game. Shooters will tell you it is a lot tougher shooting when (maybe) you come off the bench or maybe you only get 3 attempts a game instead of 7 or maybe the coach pulls you out after 2 straight misses instead of encouraging you to keep shooting.

And this year I don’t think 3pt shooting was an issue for the Griz. The issue was they just didn’t take enough. It’s not clear to me if this was a program mandate or if we just had a team of reluctant shooters.

So all is that is to say, I don’t know how he will do. No one knows. Coaches miss on players all the time, whether D-1 transfers, HS or JC. But in general if forced to make bets I would bet on D-1 transfers over JC transfers practically 100% of the time. There are cases like Henderson where that may not be the case, but with him I think they gambled on the potential of a big body with 3 years to develop versus someone they felt could come in and contribute right away. And there is nothing that I see here that on the outset would lead me to bet on Martin immediately contributing more than Gaskin, Satterwhite, Steadman or Parker. But as the saying goes, that’s why they play the games!
 
After he committed, I watched a few full games of his. He is without a doubt a knockdown shooter who had an ultimate green light at Otero. After seeing this, and seeing his terrible stats from Year 1, I got confused, and was able to find some replays of games from his freshman year at Oakland CC. Didn’t even watch a full game and came away with the idea that at Oakland, he had the same green light, but also took some really bad shots. Like reallly bad. Also found some tape from his first few games at Otero and noticed the same thing. What I’m thinking is sometime between those first few games at Otero and his commitment, his coach, who has a D-1 coaching background at Abeline Christian, had a talk with him as there was a clear difference in shot selection during the games I watched after his commitment.
All that being said, I’m going to trust the staff and the other D-1s who were showing interest or offered. He had interest from tournament teams St. Bonaventure, Abeline Christian, and Oral Roberts, as well as Montana State. His final 4 teams, all of whom offered were Us, Abeline Christian, Murray State, and Oral Roberts. Those are some pretty notable schools, a couple of which got wins in the tourney. But the one that sticks out to me the most is Abeline Christian. Being that his coach at Otero was previously on the ACU staff, and ACU pursued Martin as hard as they did, I really believe that says something given Crass and the ACU staff likely still communicated.
 
UMFan12 said:
After he committed, I watched a few full games of his. He is without a doubt a knockdown shooter who had an ultimate green light at Otero. After seeing this, and seeing his terrible stats from Year 1, I got confused, and was able to find some replays of games from his freshman year at Oakland CC. Didn’t even watch a full game and came away with the idea that at Oakland, he had the same green light, but also took some really bad shots. Like reallly bad. Also found some tape from his first few games at Otero and noticed the same thing. What I’m thinking is sometime between those first few games at Otero and his commitment, his coach, who has a D-1 coaching background at Abeline Christian, had a talk with him as there was a clear difference in shot selection during the games I watched after his commitment.
All that being said, I’m going to trust the staff and the other D-1s who were showing interest or offered. He had interest from tournament teams St. Bonaventure, Abeline Christian, and Oral Roberts, as well as Montana State. His final 4 teams, all of whom offered were Us, Abeline Christian, Murray State, and Oral Roberts. Those are some pretty notable schools, a couple of which got wins in the tourney. But the one that sticks out to me the most is Abeline Christian. Being that his coach at Otero was previously on the ACU staff, and ACU pursued Martin as hard as they did, I really believe that says something given Crass and the ACU staff likely still communicated.

Good stuff! Thanks for that perspective.
 
UMFan12 said:
After he committed, I watched a few full games of his. He is without a doubt a knockdown shooter who had an ultimate green light at Otero. After seeing this, and seeing his terrible stats from Year 1, I got confused, and was able to find some replays of games from his freshman year at Oakland CC. Didn’t even watch a full game and came away with the idea that at Oakland, he had the same green light, but also took some really bad shots. Like reallly bad. Also found some tape from his first few games at Otero and noticed the same thing. What I’m thinking is sometime between those first few games at Otero and his commitment, his coach, who has a D-1 coaching background at Abeline Christian, had a talk with him as there was a clear difference in shot selection during the games I watched after his commitment.
All that being said, I’m going to trust the staff and the other D-1s who were showing interest or offered. He had interest from tournament teams St. Bonaventure, Abeline Christian, and Oral Roberts, as well as Montana State. His final 4 teams, all of whom offered were Us, Abeline Christian, Murray State, and Oral Roberts. Those are some pretty notable schools, a couple of which got wins in the tourney. But the one that sticks out to me the most is Abeline Christian. Being that his coach at Otero was previously on the ACU staff, and ACU pursued Martin as hard as they did, I really believe that says something given Crass and the ACU staff likely still communicated.

Agreed. Lonnell gets good lift on his jumper and is a good shooter off the move. I think he will be nice addition who will stretch the floor by hunting 3's.
 
LittleBear said:
UMFan12 said:
After he committed, I watched a few full games of his. He is without a doubt a knockdown shooter who had an ultimate green light at Otero. After seeing this, and seeing his terrible stats from Year 1, I got confused, and was able to find some replays of games from his freshman year at Oakland CC. Didn’t even watch a full game and came away with the idea that at Oakland, he had the same green light, but also took some really bad shots. Like reallly bad. Also found some tape from his first few games at Otero and noticed the same thing. What I’m thinking is sometime between those first few games at Otero and his commitment, his coach, who has a D-1 coaching background at Abeline Christian, had a talk with him as there was a clear difference in shot selection during the games I watched after his commitment.
All that being said, I’m going to trust the staff and the other D-1s who were showing interest or offered. He had interest from tournament teams St. Bonaventure, Abeline Christian, and Oral Roberts, as well as Montana State. His final 4 teams, all of whom offered were Us, Abeline Christian, Murray State, and Oral Roberts. Those are some pretty notable schools, a couple of which got wins in the tourney. But the one that sticks out to me the most is Abeline Christian. Being that his coach at Otero was previously on the ACU staff, and ACU pursued Martin as hard as they did, I really believe that says something given Crass and the ACU staff likely still communicated.

Agreed. Lonnell gets good lift on his jumper and is a good shooter off the move. I think he will be nice addition who will stretch the floor by hunting 3's.

Plus he is physically strong enough to rebound, play inside and D up a lot of different positions.
 
He sounds like Egun. My assumption from the comments is that people think he is an upgrade from Egun. What are we getting in Martin that we didn’t have in Egun? Egun spent 3 years in the program and could never find consistent playing time.
 
GrizBall said:
He sounds like Egun. My assumption from the comments is that people think he is an upgrade from Egun. What are we getting in Martin that we didn’t have in Egun? Egun spent 3 years in the program and could never find consistent playing time.

40% from 3 in actual games for one thing. No offense to Egun, but he is just another in a long line of armchair QB fan favorites that for some "strange reason" never seem to make it off the bench for meaningful minutes. Being somewhat productive in spot duty is one thing, but clearly Travis never trusted him enough to give him major minutes and he watched the guy day in and day out. I'll take his evaluation over the opinion of amateurs any day.
 
gotgame75 said:
GrizBall said:
He sounds like Egun. My assumption from the comments is that people think he is an upgrade from Egun. What are we getting in Martin that we didn’t have in Egun? Egun spent 3 years in the program and could never find consistent playing time.

40% from 3 in actual games for one thing. No offense to Egun, but he is just another in a long line of armchair QB fan favorites that for some "strange reason" never seem to make it off the bench for meaningful minutes. Being somewhat productive in spot duty is one thing, but clearly Travis never trusted him enough to give him major minutes and he watched the guy day in and day out. I'll take his evaluation over the opinion of amateurs any day.

Who are these "amateurs" that you speak of? Surely any e-griz poster could enlighten them! :lol:
 
gotgame75 said:
GrizBall said:
He sounds like Egun. My assumption from the comments is that people think he is an upgrade from Egun. What are we getting in Martin that we didn’t have in Egun? Egun spent 3 years in the program and could never find consistent playing time.

40% from 3 in actual games for one thing. No offense to Egun, but he is just another in a long line of armchair QB fan favorites that for some "strange reason" never seem to make it off the bench for meaningful minutes. Being somewhat productive in spot duty is one thing, but clearly Travis never trusted him enough to give him major minutes and he watched the guy day in and day out. I'll take his evaluation over the opinion of amateurs any day.

For the record Egun shot 38% from 3 in actual D-1 games this year.
 
gotgame75 said:
GrizBall said:
He sounds like Egun. My assumption from the comments is that people think he is an upgrade from Egun. What are we getting in Martin that we didn’t have in Egun? Egun spent 3 years in the program and could never find consistent playing time.

40% from 3 in actual games for one thing. No offense to Egun, but he is just another in a long line of armchair QB fan favorites that for some "strange reason" never seem to make it off the bench for meaningful minutes. Being somewhat productive in spot duty is one thing, but clearly Travis never trusted him enough to give him major minutes and he watched the guy day in and day out. I'll take his evaluation over the opinion of amateurs any day.

Egun was not brought in under a different regime. So if I understand you correctly he failed on his evaluation on Egun, but you’ll take his evaluation on Martin without question?
 
GrizBall said:
gotgame75 said:
40% from 3 in actual games for one thing. No offense to Egun, but he is just another in a long line of armchair QB fan favorites that for some "strange reason" never seem to make it off the bench for meaningful minutes. Being somewhat productive in spot duty is one thing, but clearly Travis never trusted him enough to give him major minutes and he watched the guy day in and day out. I'll take his evaluation over the opinion of amateurs any day.

For the record Egun shot 38% from 3 in actual D-1 games this year.

Actually it was 35.1% and I'm not impressed. Egun made 13 3's the entire season. Martin was a full-time starter and his team's go-to scoring threat.
 
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