Recruiting Report: Martaz Robinson (2020)
The New Town Titans are off to a 14-1 start and have solidified their spot as the top team in Baltimore County after a dominant win at Dulaney this past week. Before the season, there was an inkling that New…
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Continue ReadingThe New Town Titans are off to a 14-1 start and have solidified their spot as the top team in Baltimore County after a dominant win at Dulaney this past week. Before the season, there was an inkling that New Town would be one of the better teams in the area, but I’m not sure anyone predicted they’d be this good. Their success is the result of many things, but one being the presence that their point guard, Martaz Robinson, provides for them.
Robinson is a 6-foot-2 floor general that took on the responsibility of leading this team. Other players such as Andrew Mills, Julian Reese, Jordan Guerrero and Kyree Johnson do their fair share, but when it comes to controlling the pace of a game and making sure sets are executed, Robinson shines.
He can certainly score the ball when the opportunity arises, but he is more focused on creating an open shot for his teammate. In fact, his aggression as a scorer is the one part of his game that can be viewed as a blemish. Robinson has the quickness and the handles to get by the majority of players that guard him and there are times when he pulls up from 15-18 feet off the dribble and looks like a big-time prospect. When you get into the nitpicking of the evaluation of players, you’d like to see him do things like this more often, but you can’t complain if he is creating open looks for others and more importantly, his team winning.
“The game has started to slow down for me,” Robinson continued, “when I first played varsity, everything seemed so fast. I’m starting to make the right decisions with the ball whether it be pulling up in the mid-range or passing to my teammates.”
The job of a point guard back in the day was to simply facilitate and set up scorers in their spots. In today’s game, the point guard is expected to do a little bit of that, but also be a capable scorer considering the ball is in their hands for much of the game. Robinson knows that’s an area where he will need to improve throughout the season and summer.
“I know I have to be more aggressive as a scorer,” Robinson told Prep Hoops. “Like, there’s sometimes where I have wide open shots and I tend to pass or try and make a play for someone else.”
Being aware of weaknesses in your game is half the battle of development. The good thing with Robinson is, his weaknesses aren’t keeping his team from winning. He’s a capable three-point shooter, can consistently convert on mid-range pull-up jumpers and finish efficiently around the rim.
Defensively, he has very active hands when he plays off the ball. Against Dulaney, New Town ran a 3-2 zone. There were multiple occasions when Dulaney guard would drive toward the paint and Robinson would dig down from the weak side and end up getting a steal. If he’s able to get his hand on the ball, more times than not, he’ll end up with it.
As a leader, Robinson has come a long way. Not as if he wasn’t before, but you can tell by his body language and conversations with teammates throughout games that he has made it an area of focus. Again referencing back to the Dulaney game, there were a handful of times when a teammate had a turnover or committed a bad foul and Robinson was right there smacking their hand telling them to forget about it. Having your point guard with that type of mentality quickly spreads throughout a locker room and that has obviously been the case with New Town.
In terms of recruitment, Robinson has been hearing from UMBC and Loyola (MD). With his body, skill set and intangibles, Robinson should start seeing more low-to-mid major schools tracking him closely.