SPRINGFIELD -- New Missouri State men's basketball coach Cuonzo Martin has announced four members of his coaching staff for the upcoming season with assistant coaches Tarrance Crump, Dr. Carson Cunningham, and Marco Harris, and director of basketball operations Quinn Peterson officially joining the fold for the 2024-25 season.
 
"I am thrilled to introduce our basketball staff, a team of coaches who deeply honor the principles, values, and effort required to build an exceptional program," said Martin. "They embody consistency, commitment, encouragement, and unwavering presence."
 
The new staffers bring more than three decades of NCAA Division I coaching experience to the MoState program.
 
Additional staff will be announced at a later date. All new staff members are subject to formal approval by the Missouri State University Board of Governors at its next scheduled meeting.
   
Tarrance Crump
Crump comes to Missouri State after spending the previous three seasons at DePaul as the director of player development from 2021-24.
 
During his time at DePaul, he was the team's academic liaison and was instrumental in the recruiting and scouting efforts for the Blue Demons.
 
Crump spent the 2020-21 season on Cuonzo Martin's staff at Missouri, serving as the Tigers' graduate assistant for one season. That stint came on the heels of five seasons as a Division I assistant coach, first under coach Jon Harris at SIUE (2015-19) and later under Rick Ray at SEMO (2019-20).
 
Crump served as Martin's assistant director of operations at California during the 2014-15 campaign. While at Cal, Crump was involved in many facets of the Bears' program, including video breakdown, scouting reports, academic liaison, camps, and community service events. He handled many of those same duties in 2013-14 as an intern on Martin's staff at Tennessee during the Vols' NCAA Sweet 16 run that season.
 
The Chicago native was the head boy's basketball coach at Vine Academy in 2012-2013 after serving one year as the girl's basketball coach at North Lawndale College Prep in 2011-2012, where his squad won 20 games.
 
Crump's relationship head coach Cuonzo Martin goes back to his playing days as a standout guard at Purdue from 2006-08, when Martin was an assistant on Matt Painter's staff. Crump and the Boilermakers won 47 games during his two seasons and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament each year. Crump, who was also an Academic All-Big Ten honoree at Purdue, earned his degree in Organizational Leadership in 2013.
 
He is married to the former Tave' Johnson.
 
Dr. Carson Cunningham
Cunningham comes to Missouri State after spending the previous season on the coaching staff at Army in 2023-24.
 
He joined the Black Knights after 10 seasons as a collegiate head coach, most recently with five seasons at Incarnate Word from 2018-23. Prior to that, he was the head coach at Carroll College in Montana from 2013-18, where he led them to two NAIA Final Eight appearances. 
 
With an over-arching coaching philosophy of winning, studying and serving, Cunningham's teams at UIW were consistently among the nation's best in terms of GPA, earning the NABC Honors Court distinction multiple times, while consistently boasting prolific national rankings in most defensive and shooting categories.
 
He took over the UIW program on March 22, 2018 and a year later, guided the Cardinals to the top free throw percentage in Division I (.810). Also, in Cunningham's second season (2019-20), Keaston Willis earned Southland Conference Freshman of the Year, a first in program history. In year three (2020-21), UIC turned in a 3.37 Fall GPA and qualified six players for Academic All-Conference consideration, while the team won half its conference road games. In 2021-22, UIW boasted the Southland Student-Athlete of the Year in Josh Morgan, compiled a 3.23 team GPA and logged a perfect 1,000 APR score with four players on the Southland Conference All-Academic team. Likewise, the Cardinals shot 37.4 percent from 3-point range to lead the Southland and rank 30th nationally. In Cunningham's final season, UIW set a school-record with 259 steals and boasted three academic all-conference players. Cunningham was 42-105 in his tenure at UIW.
 
Prior to his arrival at Carroll College, the program had only two wins the previous season. Five years later, his team was enjoying its third-straight appearance in the NAIA Division I national tournament. In five years with the Saints, Cunningham's teams were a combined 107-52 (.673) overall, reaching the 100-win plateau in just 150 games. His teams enjoyed four consecutive winning seasons, won two Frontier Conference regular season titles, two conference tournament championships, three NAIA National Tournament berths and a pair of Final Eight appearances.
 
The 2015-16 Carroll squad made a Final Eight run and boasted an impressive 3.40 team GPA. The next year, the Saints returned to the Final Eight, produced first-team All-American Zach Taylor and finished No. 3 nationally with a 3.2 team GPA. Finally, in 2017-18, Cunningham's last season at Carroll, he won conference Coach of the Year, guided Carroll to conference regular-season and tournament championships and to the NAIA DI tournament for the third consecutive year. Likewise, his team led the NAIA DI in field goal and free throw percentage. Three of his players won all-conference awards, including NAIA DI National Player of the Year, Ryan Imhoff.
 
His playing experience includes earning Freshman All-America status at Oregon State in 1997 before leading Purdue to the NCAA Sweet 16 twice and the Elite Eight once from 1998 to 2001. As a freshman, he broke Gary Payton's OSU freshman scoring record. The next year, he returned to Indiana to play for coach Gene Keady at Purdue. As a three-year starter with the Boilermakers, he logged 1,000 points, distributed just under 400 assists and logged 163 rebounds while earning Academic All-America honors twice. He later played professionally in the CBA and Europe for three seasons with playing stints for the Gary Steelheads and the Rockford Lightning before continuing his career overseas in Estonia and Australia.
 
Cunningham earned his degree in History from Purdue in 2001. He served an instructor in the History Department and later the Department of Cinema and Digital Media at DePaul from 2006-13. Concurrently, he coached the varsity boys' basketball team Andrean Catholic High School for five seasons, his alma mater in Merrillville, Ind., where he guided the 59ers to 43 wins in their final 50 games.
 
While teaching at DePaul and coaching at Andrean, Cunningham continued to pursue graduate studies. He earned an MBA from DePaul in 2013 and later also earned a Ph.D. in History from Purdue in 2006 and is the author of five books.
 
Cunningham and his wife, Christy, a former volleyball player at Purdue, have six children: daughters Caroline, Catie Joy, and Mabeline Lucille, and sons Case, Indiana, and Bennet.
 
Marco Harris
Harris comes to Missouri State in 2024 after most-recently serving under Cuonzo Martin as an assistant coach at Missouri from 2019-22.
 
In fact, Harris has spent a decade working alongside Martin in various capacities at the Division I level. His tenure at Mizzou began as director of player development and external relations under Martin, a post he held for two seasons in Columbia from 2017-19. He was elevated to assistant coach prior to the 2019-20 campaign. He was part of NCAA Tournament runs by the Tigers in 2018 and 2021.
 
In 2020-21, Mizzou spent 11 consecutive weeks in the AP Top 25, reaching as high as No. 10 nationally, and defeated six conference champions. Harris' oversight of Missouri's many initiatives to enhance the student-athlete experience fostered success in the classroom and off the court with several players being named Community Service Award recipients by the Mizzou Athletics Team for exemplary dedication to the community.
 
He also served as director of basketball operations at California during Martin's tenure in Berkeley from 2014-17 and was part of Cal's 2016 NCAA Tournament appearance. Harris also served under Martin at Tennessee from 2011-14, serving as the Volunteers' student-athlete welfare coordinator for two seasons and later as director of basketball operations. He was part of Tennessee's 2014 NCAA Sweet Sixteen run.
 
Prior to his tenure in the collegiate ranks, Harris enjoyed success as a high school coach and entrepreneur. He coached Tulsa's Booker T. Washington High School to back-to-back OSSAA 5A championships in 2010 and 2011. He also coached AAU teams in Tulsa with his involvement with the Tulsa Titans and Playing with a Purpose clubs.
 
Harris' partnership with Martin dates back to their time growing up together in East St. Louis, Ill.
 
He began his collegiate journey as a baseball standout at Southern Illinois before transferring to Southwestern Oklahoma State (1992-94) where he ultimately took up baskeball and became the squad's starting point guard spot and team captain.
 
Harris earned his undergraduate degree in Business Management from Southwestern Oklahoma State in 1994. He also holds an Associate's degree in Business Management from Southwestern Illinois (1992). He is married to the former Ramona Knight, of Frogville, Okla.
 
Quinn Peterson
Peterson comes to Missouri State as director of basketball operations after spending the previous two seasons as an assistant coach under Marty Simmons at Eastern Illinois University from 2021 to 2023.
 
During his time at EIU, Peterson helped rebuild the Panthers' roster with eight new players in 2022-23, while boasting 10 OVC Freshman of the Week award winners by four different players and collecting the OVC Freshman of the Year and one OVC All-Newcomer Team honoree. He was also instrumental in Eastern Illinois' upset of Iowa in the regular season, which was rated as one of the biggest upsets in college basketball in the past 30 years.
 
Prior to his time at Eastern Illinois, he served two seasons under Cuonzo Martin as a graduate assistant at Missouri from 2019-21. While there, he was part of a 2021 Tigers' squad that spent 11 consecutive weeks in the AP Top 25, reaching as high as No. 10 nationally, and defeated six conference champions.
 
Peterson began his coaching career as an assistant coach at Oak Park (Ill.) River Forest High (2011-15) and later became head coach at Walter Payton College Prep in Chicago where he served from 2015-19. While at Payton, his teams won more than 60 games with conference championships in 2016 and 2019 and a pair of IHSA regional championships.
 
In addition to his coaching experience, he has worked as director of The Brudas, Inc., a non-profit youth basketball organization founded by former NBA player Iman Shumpert
 
Peterson earned his undergraduate degree in Communications from DePaul in 2011 and later earned master's degrees from Concordia (Ill.) in 2015 and Missouri in 2021. 
 
He is married to the former Veronica Hicks, and has a son, Jordan.