With Marquette swinging for the fences and missing on VCU head coach Shaka Smart during its first attempt to replace Buzz Williams, the Golden Eagles have dug in for their second at-bat as the Big East program will reportedly target Tennessee head coach Cuonzo Martin and former UCLA head coach Ben Howland.
According to a report from ESPN.com’s Jeff Goodman, Marquette is interested in Martin, who led Tennessee to the Sweet 16 after back-to-back NIT appearances, and Howland, who didn’t coach this season after his stint at UCLA.
Howland is evidently very interested in the Marquette job -- per Goodman -- but Martin could be an intriguing candidate. After a small -- but vocal -- section of the Tennessee fanbase made it clear that they prefer Bruce Pearl, -- now at Auburn -- does Martin want to come back to the Vols and those fans that wanted to boot him in favor of a former coach? That’ll be the question that we find out in the next few days as Marquette could really make a big push to go after Martin.