Tigers’ Jeremiah Martin named National Player of the Week

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A few days ago, Jeremiah Martin raised eyebrows when he said he felt like he was the best player on the best team with the best coach in the American Athletic Conference.

Somewhere in there, he dropped 40+ points TWICE — something that no Memphis Tiger had done in history, let alone twice in the same month like Martin has. And win or lose, his scoring streak has done the talking for him.

And now it’s earned him the NCAA National Player of the Week. From gotigersgo.com:

University of Memphis guard Jeremiah Martin earned the Lute Olson Award for National Player of the Week Monday.

The 6-foot-3 senior helped the Tigers to a pair of American Conference wins last week. On Wednesday he had 43 points, eight assists, seven
rebounds and five steals against Tulane. On Saturday he finished with 37 points on the road at Wichita State.

The Lute Olson Award is presented annually to the nation’s top Division I player who has played at least two seasons with his respective team.
Freshmen and first-year transfers can be named to the All-America team, but are not eligible to receive the Player of the Year honors.

The award is named in honor of coaching great Lute Olson, who won 780 games in 34 seasons, 24 of which were spent at the University of Arizona.
During that stretch he led the Wildcats to 11 Pac-10 Conference titles, 23 consecutive NCAA Tournaments, four Final Four appearances and a National Championship in 1997.

Not surprisingly, Martin was named AAC Player of the Week as well. UofM Athletics helps us put these accomplishments in perspective:

Martin became the first Tiger this season to earn conference Player of the Week, although he had been recognized as a Weekly Honor Roll selection the previous three weeks.
 
Martin’s performances last week moved him from No. 17 to No. 13 on the school’s career-scoring chart with 1,449 points, seven more than former Tiger point guard Andre Turner. Turner, who coached Martin at Mitchell High, finished with 1,442 points from 1983 to 1986.
 
No Tiger in the UofM’s long and storied basketball history has experienced as productive a seven-game stretch as Martin. Through seven games this month, he is averaging 30.7 points. Included in the run have been games of 43, 41, 37 and 31 points. He is the first Tiger in program history to score 40 or more points twice in a career.
 
His 43-point game against Tulane set a conference single-game record and a FedExForum record for a college player.

The Tigers welcome Temple to FedExForum on Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2019. Tipoff is at 8 p.m.