The lightning-quick junior guard scored a career-high 33 points to upend the defending Division I state champs.
GREEN Kaleb Martin is half magician and half assassin — and against Jackson on Friday night, he was a total pain in the neck.
With no Polar Bear defender capable of staying in front of him — and no twin towers waiting at the rim to swat him — Green's undersized guard with the oversized game repeatedly attacked the lane, either finishing with a Kyrie-esque layup, a pull-up jumper, a trip to the free throw line or a pretty pass to a wide open Bulldog.
The result was a career-high 33 points and a convincing 77-64 win over the Division I defending state champions in a Federal League game at Green High School.
“I think this was the best game we played all year,” said Martin, who is generously listed at 5-foot-9 but who may be the fastest player in the Federal League. “Coming into our house, defending state champs, Federal League title last year — it’s huge.”
Green was ready to play from the start, opening up an 18-8 lead late in the first quarter thanks to six points from sophomore Donovan O’Neil and a commitment to hustling for every 50-50 ball.
Although Jackson rallied to tie the game at 21 midway through the second quarter thanks to back-to-back 3-pointers by Hayden Junker, Green never stopped believing.
More importantly, it never stopped hustling.
Martin scored 10 points over the final five minutes of the second quarter and O’Neil added six to give the Bulldogs a 41-31 halftime lead.
The lead ballooned to 15 points midway through the fourth, 71-56, and Martin scored 10 points in the final period (including 6 of 6 from the free throw line) to close out the victory. Although the Polar Bears briefly tried trapping Martin in the second half, that simply opened things up for Garrison Keeslar, who scored all 10 of his points after the break.
“Kaleb was outstanding tonight,” Green coach Mark Kinsley said. “He did a great job, obviously, of getting his, but he also got other guys involved."
Added Martin, “They’re a lot smaller this year, so it’s easier for me to get in (the lane) and make a pull-up jumper. If not, then their big guy comes out and I have a dish to my big man, Donovan, and he usually finishes.”
O’Neil finished with 14 points, including 12 in the first half, for the Bulldogs (6-3, 4-1), whose only league loss was at home to unbeaten Lake.
“I was proud of the guys tonight,” Kinsley said. “Our defense did a good job of making them earn baskets and I thought Dom O’Neil gave us a big lift scoring inside. And Garrison Keeslar hit some big shots in the second half. They did a really good job taking him out in the first half and I just told him to be patient. He got a couple good looks in the second half and knocked them down.”
Pallotta scored 25 points with eight rebounds and four assists to lead Jackson (6-4, 2-2), which plays Lake next Friday. Stanislawski added 18 points.
“We did a bad job containing (Martin),” Jackson coach Tim Debevec said. “He’s a good player and that’s what good players do in games like this. They out-hustled us a little bit and against a team like that, you’ve got to play almost a perfect game on the road.”
When told that Martin said it was Green’s best game of the year, Debevec grinned and said, “That’s what we do at Jackson. We bring out the best in teams.”
The Polar Bears graduated their two post players — Kyle Young is now at Ohio State and Logan Hill at Toledo — and, with just two returning starters (Pallotta and Stanislawski), they don’t have the same cohesion they did last season.
They still have time to figure things out — Pallotta tweeted after the game “We’ll get to where we need to be” — but if they want to win their fourth straight Federal League title, they can’t afford another loss.
“We’ve got to bounce back,” Debevec said. “Halfway through the season, being 6-4, that doesn’t sit well with this team. But we’ll look at the film, shore things up and get better. That’s all we can do right now.”