Gilroy native and Valley Christian grad named NCAA DII free
throw percentage champ
Gilroy – Rick Barry make room for Marcus Martinez.
This past season, the Gilroy native and starting shooting guard for Cal State Stanislaus was named the NCAA Division II free throw percentage champ.
Martinez, a redshirt junior, missed just five free throws all season, making 75 of 80 attempts for a percentage of 93.8 from the charity stripe.
“I’ve always shot decently,” said Martinez, 22, who graduated from Valley Christian in 2002. “But I’ve never had a season like that.”
Martinez said he didn’t realize his free throw shooting measured up with the best of Division II college basketball until his roommate brought it to his attention in the middle of the season.
“He pointed out, ‘You’re 40-for-42,'” Martinez related via phone from Los Angeles Tuesday. “When you look back and you can remember every miss because there’s only two or three, I guess you must be doing pretty good.”
For Martinez, the honor was a fitting finish to a much-improved second season at Stanislaus. The redshirt junior sat out a season with the Warriors after transferring from Menlo College after his freshman year before starting a handful of games in 2004-2005.
This season, Martinez was the team’s scoring leader, averaging 14.7 points per game for the 14-13 Warriors. The team ended on a hot streak, winning nine of its last 11 games of the season, an accomplishment Martinez believes the squad can build on for next season with so many players returning.
“I think our team molded well,” said Martinez. “We missed the tournament by just a game or two and had the whole town supporting us.”
Martinez called this season the best of his college career, partly due to the fact that his parents and siblings made it to almost all of Cal State Stanislaus’ home games.
“It became a running joke to the team that we always had home fans,” Martinez said.
Before he suits up for his last season, Martinez, a double-major in business finance and economics who has made the Dean’s List for the past three years, will finish up a summer internship with an L.A. brokerage firm.
