What we learned from Remy Martin’s return in Kansas Jayhawks basketball loss to Baylor
Hours before Baylor’s 80-70 victory over Kansas on Saturday night, ESPN analyst LaPhonso Ellis spoke on College GameDay about how he believed KU’s ceiling was capped.
Or, at least it was in the team’s current form.
“Remy Martin is the key to it for me,” Ellis said then. “ ... Without him being healthy, I don’t think this Kansas team is a Final Four team.”
While Ellis is paid to have opinions as a college hoops generalist, his opinion here seems similar to many Jayhawks fans throughout this season.
Martin, both in the preseason and after battling a lingering knee injury through most of 2022, often has been labeled as KU’s missing piece.
Which is why Saturday’s return had the potential for so much intrigue.
Martin can be a dynamic playmaker. He can make tough shots in the half-court even when the defense is playing well against him. His on-court energy has helped lift KU to some of its best moments this season, and his speed and vision have the potential to give the Jayhawks’ already-dangerous transition game a different gear.
That’s all in a perfect world, though. What KU faces at the moment is a reality where Martin is still testing his injured knee, hasn’t practiced much in the last two months, is behind on the playbook and is still working on getting back into game shape.
The hope for coach Bill Self on Saturday, then, was likely to get a few answers at least. Throw Martin out there, see how he looked and gain some essential knowledge for the most important games ahead.
What ended up happening, though, had to be at least a little bit frustrating.
Because Martin wasn’t excellent ... and he wasn’t awful either. He was just OK.
And that type of result leaves Self dangling in roster purgatory when it comes to figuring out what to do next.
Self was asked after the game what it meant to get Martin back. His full response? “I don’t know that it really meant much. I was glad he was out there. I thought he did fine. I thought he scored five points in the first half. He did fine. He did fine. He needs to get out there and get some rhythm, but I thought he did fine in his minutes.”
Look, Self is not likely to all-out rip Martin at this point. Their relationship has already been dissected a bunch, and Self has little to gain from criticizing a kid returning from a month-long injury.
Reading between the lines, though, Self wasn’t exactly effusive in his praise for Martin either.
And rewatching when Martin checked out in the second half against Baylor appears to give us some clues into what frustrated the coach.
Midway through the second half, Martin failed to step in front of Baylor’s Flo Thamba on a roll, which led to a Thamba layup and foul on Martin. Baylor had good timing with its players to confuse KU’s help defenders, but a rewatch shows Martin not reacting quickly enough to the play.
Then, after the final media timeout, Martin tried to create an offensive foul by flailing back when Baylor’s James Akinjo started to drive in the lane. It nearly worked; one official originally called charge before Doug Sirmons overturned him, changing it to a flop warning on Martin.
Self had seen enough, subbing Dajuan Harris back in at the stoppage.
Both moments show precisely what Martin is facing as a one-year transfer playing midseason catch-up.
The first play is one of Self’s non-negotiables. He not only demands team defensive execution, but he also loathes giving up easy buckets. Martin was far from the only KU player who struggled defensively on ball screens against Baylor, but this one was evident enough that Martin came out right away.
“He knows it (the defensive rotation). It’s just a step slow,” KU teammate Christian Braun said of Martin. “And that was for all of us. They (the Bears) did some things that kind of messed us up.”
Martin’s final play — the attempted flop — also probably irked Self more than the point guard realized.
Self is a huge believer in his players understanding time, score and momentum. There are instances when risky plays might make sense, yet crunch time in a close game usually is when Self prefers his teams to play solid defense while forcing the opponent to make a difficult shot.
While Martin’s theatrics nearly drew a whistle, they also go against some of what Self believes in his core. When things get tough, he wants tough-minded players; needless to say, an attempt to fool a ref in this moment doesn’t fit the mold of what Self teaches his guys.
These are all the types of nuances Martin would’ve learned had he started his career at KU or if he’d played in as many games this year as hoped.
The circumstances aren’t his fault, but it’s also prudent to realize that time isn’t exactly on his side anymore.
KU has three games left in the regular season. The Big 12 Tournament is after that, and the NCAAs loom in less than three weeks. Self needs to come up with a blueprint for his best lineups.
There are risks in playing Martin too. Joseph Yesufu has brought energy and athleticism off the bench recently, but playing Martin carves into his playing time while potentially killing some positive momentum built up there. Martin also remains a question mark at best defensively, with KU likely to be fine if he can tread water on that end.
However, the most critical issue is this: Can Martin improve from what he showed Saturday?
You’d certainly think it’s possible. This was only Martin’s first game back, and even with limited game reps recently, he showed flashes of offensive burst while scoring his five points in the first half of his 11-minute effort.
“To get thrown out there into an environment right then and there after he’s missed a lot of games is really impressive,” KU teammate Ochai Agbaji said. “Trying to get him back to game speed, offensively and defensively ... I think that’s just the key moving forward.”
To reiterate: Martin had good moments against Baylor. He looked much healthier than the last time he played. He should get more comfortable over time, and it’d be easy to convince yourself his best basketball is ahead.
Then again, he was mostly a liability defensively. He tried to pull off a weird play in a big moment and didn’t exactly win his coach over on a night when fellow point guard Harris wasn’t effective either.
Martin wasn’t KU’s most significant problem against Baylor ... but didn’t prove himself to be a long-term solution either.
That leaves Self — once again — at the most awkward of crossroads.
This story was originally published February 27, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
