It’s going to be a rough week for Alijah Martin, the Florida Atlantic University basketball player who let a personal victory celebration get out of hand on Sunday.
Martin is from Mississippi, a graduate of North Pike High School in the southwest part of the state.
FAU, the No. 9 seed in the NCAA basketball tournament’s East Regional, advanced to its first Sweet 16 game by beating Fairleigh Dickinson University on Sunday.
Fairleigh Dickinson had already captured the nation’s attention by becoming only the second No. 16 seed to beat a top-seeded team in the tournament, upsetting Purdue on Friday night.
Unfortunately, Martin’s excessive celebration at the end of Sunday’s second-round game tarnished FAU’s impressive achievement. Not too many people expected them to win two games in the tournament, with their first victory coming against Memphis.
With FAU up by 6 points Sunday and the clock winding down, Fairleigh Dickinson’s coach conceded the game and told his players not to foul. Martin apparently missed the signal, trying — and missing — a 360 slam dunk that rightly prompted boos from the crowd.
The attempted slam also prompted FAU’s coach, Dusty May, to apologize to the Fairleigh Dickinson coach. May said afterward that it’s up to coaches to fix the showboating behavior that has become a growing part of American sports culture.
Martin was a no-show for the post-game press conference — probably a good decision considering the questions he was going to be asked. It’s also certain that his coach and teammates let Martin know right after the game that his sportsmanship in victory needs improvement.
Social media, naturally, was universally negative toward Martin, as it always tends to be when someone makes a very public mistake.
Which leads to a point worth mentioning. Martin’s attempted dunk at the end of the game was poor sportsmanship, and even worse because he missed the slam. It was a giant negative at the end of a very positive day for FAU.
It was a public mistake. But it shouldn’t be the end of the world. Martin is not the first young person to act rashly. So these questions should be asked: Is he a good person? Is he a good teammate? Has he put in the extra hours of work that’s required of college athletes? Those attributes should be remembered, too.
If he hasn’t done it already, Martin can begin emerging from the doghouse with a forthright apology, along the lines of: “I made a mistake because I was excited we were about to win a second game. I did not intend to be disrespectful, but I’ve learned my lesson and will be a better person and player for it.”
Mississippi basketball fans can at least be pleased that a local athlete is starting for a Sweet 16 underdog. It may be that lots of basketball fans will root against Martin when FAU plays Tennessee on Thursday. But that can be a wonderful incentive to pull off an upset.
— Jack Ryan, McComb Enterprise-Journal
