NFA’s Jared Martin is The Day’s All-Area Boys’ Basketball Player of the Year
NFA’s Jared Martin led the Wildcats in scoring as they found a way to repeat as ECC tournament champs
There’s an old story about a basketball coach who once admonished an assistant for yelling at the team’s star player. “Leave him alone,” the head coach said. “I like his 20 points per game.”
Chris Guisti, the man who led Norwich Free Academy to its second straight conference tournament title this season, might have harbored similar feelings about Jared Martin. There were times when perhaps Guisti himself lost a little hair watching Martin play.
But then, there are those
(nearly) 20 points per game.
Martin, a senior, averaged 18.5 per game this year for the Wildcats, who won the Eastern
Connecticut Conference
South Division tournament title in the abbreviated, COVID-19 high school basketball season.
Martin was named The
Day’s 2021 Boys' Basketball Player of the Year.
It was after the South Division championship game victory at East Lyme that Guisti called his 2021 team the ’85 Bears (alluding to its defensive bent) after referring to his 2020 team as the ’85 Celtics (after its ability to score.)
Remember: even the ’85 Bears had Walter Payton. And that’s what Martin was to his team this season: The best scorer on a team that didn’t score much. NFA didn’t always get into the 50s. Such was the case in the South Division title game on the road when Martin scored 24 of his team’s 48.
“It seemed like every time we need a basket this year,” senior Joe Klick said after an NFA victory, “Jared was there to get it for us.”
This was not an easy season for Martin on many levels. First, the obvious: The COVID basketball season left virtually every player in the state without much offseason preparation. The preseason was short, the regular season barely a month long.
Martin, meanwhile, became the remaining holdover
“It seemed like every time we need a basket this year, Jared was there to get it for us.”
JOE KLICK, NFA SENIOR
from NFA’s undefeated 2020 team. The Wildcats won the ECC Large Division and ECC tournament titles a year ago, entering the state Division I tourney undefeated. They never knew how far they could have advanced. The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference ended the state tournament early due to the onset of the virus.
Suddenly, the Wildcats lost point guard Xavier Marquez and forward Nolan Molkenthin to graduation, while forward Mason Jackson transferred. Martin got elevated from a Pip right to Gladys Knight. Not easy.
It was after NFA’s season-opening loss to New London in mid-February that Martin used the weekend to seek counsel from his old friends. Martin talked to Jackson and Marquez, helping an 18-point effort in the season’s first win over St. Bernard.
“They talked to me about the role I have to take as a senior,” Martin said. “It’s about leadership, not all about scoring.”
Scoring, as Guisti said, suddenly wasn’t as easy for Martin. He drew Tayeshawn Cunningham-Pemberton of New London and Frank Pacheco of St. Bernard in those two games, the best defensive players on their respective teams.
“He’s finding out what it’s like to be the No. 1 man on the scouting report,” Guisti said. “Last year, he could float around out there and shoot open 3s.”
Martin missed the team’s overtime win at Fitch in late February — perhaps NFA’s best regular season victory. Still, in that game, the Wildcats scored but 41 points. Martin returned to come off the bench in subsequent games, resuming his role as leading scorer.
“I brought the energy off the bench, too,” Martin said.
He ended his career at NFA having played in the league’s last three ECC championship games.
"As the season progressed, Jared learned to play within himself and not force the action," Guisti said. "I'm proud of the way he learned to accept coaching."