Martin-Main-12416.jpg
Frosh Martin Earning High Praise
January 24, 2016 10:27 AM | Women's Basketball
From the moment Mike Carey first saw Tynice Martin playing AAU basketball he knew she was a player who could fit perfectly in his West Virginia system.
She has the ability to create her own offense off the dribble, she can shoot over top of people and she ALWAYS plays hard.
Then, as he learned more about her, about how her father Terry Martin once played college basketball with Charles Barkley at Auburn and taught her the game from an early age, that really sealed it - this was a player who could come in and help right away, he thought.
And she has.
“She has lived up to everything that we felt she could be,” said Carey.
He continued.
“She can stop on a dime and pull up and rise above people and shoot that mid-jumper and that’s tough when you get somebody going off the dribble,” he explained. “And she can score in different ways, which makes her very effective.”
Martin, a 5-foot-10-inch two-guard from Atlanta, might be the best freshman player in the Big 12 this year. She certainly has been playing that way since the calendar flipped to 2016.
Martin scored 15 points in an 11-point home loss to fifth-ranked Texas, she scored 16 points in a blowout win at Kansas State, had 15 in another blowout victory over Texas Tech, contributed 12 in a five-point road loss at sixth-ranked Baylor, and, most recently, she scored a season-high 18 on eight of 12 shooting in a 37-point home win over Kansas.
KU coach Brandon Schneider was extremely impressed with Martin’s game following the Mountaineers’ win over the Jayhawks eight days ago.
“It’s a rare thing in the game today to be a proficient mid-range jump shooter, and I think that’s what makes her a really tough cover and the fact that she can just elevate over the top,” he said. “I think we guarded her pretty well a couple of times and she just made jumpers right over top of us. In those situations, you just have to tap a person on the back and tell them nice play.”
In her last four games, Martin is shooting nearly 50 percent from the floor to boost her season scoring average to 9.5 points per game. In Big 12 play she is averaging 13 points, ranking second to Bria Holmes’ 15.7 points-per-game average in conference action among Mountaineer players.
In fact, Martin has already earned enough trust from her coach to have offense run through her during key moments in games.
“When you’ve got a player like that you run some stuff for her,” Carey admitted. “There are a lot of times we’ll isolate her and do things for.”
Martin has the total package – the ability to score off the bounce, shoot the three, blow by bigger players and take it to the rim or post up smaller players. But what makes her truly unique is the mid-range game she possesses.
“Not a lot of players these days have that mid-jumper and she does,” Carey admitted.
Tynice says that comes from her father, who once explained to her that she couldn’t just rely on one aspect of her game because good defenders will eventually take that away.
“One day I just fell in love with the jump shot and my dad would always say ‘you can’t just fall in love with the jump shot, you’ve got to mix it up.’ I figured out very young and quickly that a lot of female athletes don’t have the pull up J, so that is something real unique about my game and I just continue to work on it,” Martin said.
Martin has benefitted from her father’s basketball knowledge, for sure, but she also wanted to chart her own course and seek the depths of her own water, so to speak.
When all of the top women’s basketball programs in the southeast began recruiting her she took her time to really investigated things. Martin said her choices came down to Miami, North Carolina and Tennessee before making a late visit to West Virginia.
She liked everything about the school - the atmosphere, the people, the academics, the program Carey was running and the fact that West Virginia was a good distance away from home. Immediately, she found herself checking off more positives for West Virginia than the other schools so she committed.
“Everybody is trying to sell you something so you just have to look at the bigger picture,” Martin explained. “I came here and I fell in love with everything.
“I wanted to experience different things and you don’t want your parents popping up all of the time and when you turn 18 you’re supposed to grow up by yourself,” she explained. “Of course, they are going to be there for you, but you’ve got to grow into your own person.”
Carey said the Martins had a great plan for Tynice, which is why she has enjoyed success so early in her career playing one of the best basketball conferences in the country in the Big 12.
“She had good coaching and her dad worked with her a lot; he knows a lot about basketball and he’s a great person,” said Carey. “One thing I like, too, is her dad didn’t baby her. He was tough on her and because of that, she’s been able to adjust to me a lot easier.”
“The yelling doesn’t phase me,” she laughed. “When I first got here it was like, ‘(Carey) is yelling too much!’ But then I realized he’s just trying to make me better.”
So far, college basketball has been just as she expected it to be. Everything her father told her about the speed of the game, the size of the players, their athleticism and strength has been spot on.
What caught her by surprise, however, is just how much time she spends with her teammates on a daily basis.
“I just thought it would be practices and games and that’s it,” Martin said. “But you have some teammates who live with each other, you have classes with your teammates, you have meetings with your teammates and it’s just so cool. I love it.”
Martin also loves where the team is at right now, the Mountaineers are currently back in the national rankings at No. 25 this week with 15-4 overall record, including a 4-2 mark in league play to put them a half-game up on Oklahoma State heading into today’s game at TCU.
Carey admits this year’s team is performing much better than he anticipated, and a lot of it can be attributed to the outstanding play of Martin and fellow freshmen Katrina Pardee, a 5-foot-9-inch guard from Cedar Park, Texas, and Alexis Brewer, a 5-foot-9-inch guard from Buffalo, Ky.
Florida State transfer Chania Ray, who became eligible at mid-semester, has also given the backcourt a big boost at point guard.
Teana Muldrow, a 6-foot-1-inch sophomore forward, 6-foot-5 junior center Lanay Montgomery, now approaching 200 blocks for her career, and Holmes, a potential top 10 pick in this year’s WNBA draft, make this an interesting group to keep an eye on down the road when postseason play begins.
Martin believes the team is now just beginning to hit its stride with some key games on the horizon.
“I feel like we have a chance,” she said. “They say we have already passed the team from last year because they started out 0-4. This is not where we want to be exactly, but I feel like we can only get better.”
According to Mike Carey, the same can be said for Tynice Martin.
“I think she’s got a chance to become one of the best players who ever played here because she can score so many different ways,” he said.
This afternoon, Martin and the Mountaineers take on TCU in Fort Worth before traveling over to Norman to face 19th-ranked Oklahoma on Wednesday night.
Today’s TCU game is airing on FOX Sports Southwest Plus and FOX College Sports Central.
NCAA Second Round Press Conference | Kellogg, Harrison, Shaw
Monday, March 23
NCAA First Round Recap
Sunday, March 22
Mark Kellogg, Meme Wheeler & Jordan Harrison | NCAA First Round vs. Miami (OH)
Saturday, March 21
NCAA Tournament Trailer
Friday, March 20
