Nick KrugWhile containing red-hot Kansas guard Remy Martin has been tough enough for KU’s opponents this month, finding game film that can help devise plan on how to go about it has been an even bigger challenge.
With just 16 teams remaining in the hunt the national title, coaches at this time of year tend to look for any advantage they can find when it comes to scouting their next opponent.
That often means extra film or analytics work, a call to a colleague who has deep knowledge of your next foe or creating some kind of in-game strategy that can catch an opponent off guard.
Several of the coaches who have faced Martin during his late-season resurgence said they found comfort in knowing plenty about him from his time at Arizona State.
The top-seeded Kansas men’s basketball team was greeted by good vibes in its return to Chicago on Wednesday evening.
Nick Krug“We’re familiar with him,” Texas Southern coach Johnny Jones said before TSU’s loss to Kansas. “We played at Arizona State when he was their starting point. So, we’re very familiar with his game, his style of play. That won’t be anything new to us.”
It was, though. Because it came with Martin in a Kansas uniform, surrounded by other weapons that also demand serious attention from opposing defenses.
Creighton coach Greg McDermott, said the Martin he saw last weekend was not the same player he remembered from the past.
“His growth and improvement, from the guy that was at Arizona State to the guy that’s playing now, is night and day,” McDermott said after KU’s win over the Bluejays. “His engagement defensively and the unselfish nature of the way he’s playing is totally different than the guy we played against when he was at Arizona State.”
Baylor coach Scott Drew, whose team faced Kansas once without Martin and once with him, said the Bears’ approach to had more to do with Martin’s specific role with the Jayhawks.
Like McDermott, however, Drew acknowledged that Martin’s past was a part of Baylor’s planning.
“He’s got a big enough reputation that everyone knows what he’s capable of,” Drew told the Journal-World last weekend. “I think it’s really how he fits in with the guys.”
Therein lies the rub for coaches who find comfort in having a decent book on Martin from his four seasons with the Sun Devils.
While he does have the same fiery personality and play-making ability, the way he’s being used by Kansas coach Bill Self is not the same. And there are only a handful of good-Remy games on film from his time at Kansas for opposing coaches to look at and break down as they game plan for him.
The pool of helpful game film is, however, growing by the day.
Consider this: Prior to his 57 minutes of action in three games at the Big 12 tournament, Martin had not played more than 14 minutes in a single game since January.
That included four games at the end of the regular season that served as a bit of a postseason tune-up. He sat out in street clothes for the seven games before that.
Going back even farther, Martin only played in six of the nine games that followed KU’s win over Nevada. That was the night when he first injured his right knee.
He averaged 18 minutes per game in those six outings, but rarely looked fully healthy and did not play with the same freedom, explosiveness or confidence that he’s showing today.
“What makes him so good is his speed and quickness make it hard to get up on him and his shot-making ability makes it hard when you back off him,” Drew said. “If he’s healthy, it gives Kansas a whole other dimension. Here’s somebody that can get 20 (points) or help his teammates get 20.”
That last part was what stood out most to McDermott.
“Coach Self and his staff have done a great job of getting him to understand how he can best help this team,” McDermott said.
Self has deflected a lot of the credit for that to Martin. While there was an inevitable adjustment period that was required early in the season, Martin’s injuries — ankle, back and knee — delayed the progress he and his new team could make in that department.
While Self always appreciated Martin’s no-excuses attitude, he also never quite knew when Martin would be ready and what it would look like when he was. He does now.
“I think he’s hung in there pretty good,” Self said. “When I (say) ‘Remy, until you feel comfortable, maybe play a little bit more conservatively until you kind of get into a groove or whatever,’ he’s looking at me saying, ‘No. You don’t get me at all.’ And he may be partially right. Because he is a guy that needs to play with a total open mind and play with freedom. And I think we’re seeing what our team can be, if in fact, Remy is healthy. And it’s a different team than what we had a month ago.”
The deeper the Jayhawks advance in the tournament, the more likely it becomes that opposing coaches will look only at the past few weeks of Martin’s production when scouting the Jayhawks. Whether that’s a large enough sample size for them to develop an effective strategy to slow him down remains to be seen.
But time is of the essence in this NCAA Tournament quick turnarounds. And that’s where Self and his coaching counterparts tend to agree on how to prepare for players like Martin.
“If there’s enough film from this year, you don’t have to (look at Arizona State tape),” Drew said. “But if you feel like you need some of those clips, just to see him making game winners and big shots, you would.”
Self approached it the same way when matched up with Creighton’s Alex O’Connell, who Kansas previously had faced when O’Connell was at Duke.
“I won’t,” said Self when asked prior to the matchup if he would look back at O’Connell’s Duke film. “It’s hard to do things like that when you only have, what, 40 hours or 38 hours or whatnot.”
Martin and the top-seeded Jayhawks (30-6) will square off with No. 4 seed Providence (27-5) at 6:29 p.m. Friday night at Chicago’s United Center on TBS.
