Scott Martin's basketball career has come to an end. Notre Dame basketball coach Mike Brey made the announcement on the sixth-year Fighting Irish grad student Thursday night during his weekly radio show. Martin has missed Notre Dame's last nine games with a recurring knee injury.
"I really feel for him," Brey said of Martin. "He was playing his best basketball for us early in the season. He tried like heck."
Brey says Martin will have arthroscopic knee surgery next Wednesday, the day after Notre Dame's final home game, to clean out accumulated scar tissue in the knee. Martin had two previous procedures performed on the knee - one for ACL tear and the second for meniscus. The current ailment is believed to be due to lingering scar tissue.
Martin had tried to practice more and more over the last few weeks, but was never able to go as hard as he needed to get back on the court. Brey had said last week that there was still hope Martin could contribute to Notre Dame's stretch run to the season. They had hoped the extra time in between games the last two weeks would aid to his return, but it was not to be.
"It was aching all the time," Brey said on WSBT of Martin's knee. "He said there's a lot of pain. We just need to shut him down."
The Valparaiso, Ind native averaged 7.9 points and 5.9 rebounds in the 18 games he was able to play this season. He connected on 31 of 67 (46%) of his three-point tries this season. He sat one game earlier in the year as well prior to the current nine-game stretch he has missed.
Martin felt pain in the knee while standing up on the bench during Notre Dame's Jan. 7 win at Cincinnati en-route to a 12-point outing. He scored a total of just seven points over the next four games while trying to play through the injury. He was 0 for 2 from the floor in a scoreless night in his final game - a 63-47 home loss to Georgetown on Jan. 21. Brey shut Martin down two days later.
"He didn't want to tell me he couldn't go," Brey said at the time. "In practice the other day he wasn't moving real well and I kind of got on him in front of everybody. I said 'he you gotta let me know, can you go or not'."
Martin scored a total of 1,048 points in 116 career games (9.0) at Notre Dame and Purdue. His career began at Purdue during the 2007-2008 season. He averaged 8.5 points in 32 games, mostly as a reserve, that season while playing with high school teammate Robbie Hummel. He sat out the next season due to NCAA transfer rules after enrolling at Notre Dame. He missed all of 2009-2010 with the ACL injury.
