CEDAR FALLS — Max Martino is a smart guy. We’re talking really smart, class valedictorian at Kennedy and all that, so if people want to think he helped the University of Northern Iowa reach the Sweet 16 of the NCAA basketball tournament last season, that’s OK with him.

He’ll accept the compliment, even though he was a senior at Kennedy last March when the Panthers upset Kansas for the biggest win in school history. Martino is part of the program now, however, and loving it.

“It’s really incredible,” he said Nov. 6  after UNI beat the University of Mary, 57-38, in an exhibition game at the McLeod Center. “When you’re walking in the Wal-Mart and you have a basketball T-shirt on, it’s ‘Hey, you play for UNI. Good job last year.’ Everybody in Cedar Falls is like that. It’s just really cool to be part of the team.”

Martino, a 6-foot-5 guard who’s being redshirted this season, does not bother to set the record straight.

“I just say, ‘Thank you, keep watching. We’ll be just as good.’”

It will be hard for Northern Iowa to be “just as good,” considering they won a school-record 30 games last season and reached the Sweet 16 for the first time in school history, but you can’t blame a rookie for dreaming.

Martino had only modest statistics for Kennedy last season when he averaged 8.3 points, 4 rebounds and 3 assists, but UNI Coach Ben Jacobson looked beyond the numbers and saw a player with potential.

“I really like him defensively,” Jacobson said. “I like his size, I like the way he moves around, he can guard different positions. Those are things that we can see and really like. And he’s got a good feel offensively. He wasn’t a big scorer in high school, but he’s got a good feel.

“The other thing we liked about him is the type of student that he is,” Jacobson continued. “Tremendous academically. He is really, really good.

“And then the fact that he’s a multi-sport guy. We really like that. He’s competitive. You can see that, because he’s playing the different sports (at Kennedy) and he’s successful in the different sports. So there’s a lot to like about him.”

Martino had a 4.2 GPA at Kennedy on a 4.0 scale, thanks to Advanced Placement classes and weighted grades. He was second team all-state in football as a receiver, second team all-conference in basketball, and a member of a shuttle hurdle relay team that set a record at the Drake Relays. He also played baseball through his sophomore year, but gave it up to concentrate on basketball.

Martino does not have a basketball scholarship at UNI, but he’s got a couple of academic scholarships to help pay the bills. He’d like to get a basketball scholarship at some point, though, and thinks it’s possible.

“Maybe,” he said. “If I work into the rotation and get enough minutes and contribute enough, then there’s a possibility. I’m not completely 100 percent sure, but that’s always a goal.”

Martino played three minutes Saturday against the University of Mary and was the 12th Panther to get into the game, but Jacobson plans to redshirt him this season and let him develop.

“That’s fine,” Martino said. “I need to get in the weight room, I need to get in better condition, I need to get bigger, stronger and just learn the college game compared to the high school game.

“Everybody is bigger and faster,” he said. “Everybody says that, but you don’t really realize it and understand it until you get on the floor. I mean, Lucas O’Rear. You don’t want to get screened by him, because he’s that much bigger and that much stronger than I am. So I look for ways to avoid screens and look for ways to get an extra step, where I wouldn’t have looked for ways in high school.”

Lucas O’Rear is UNI’s brawny 6-foot-6, 260-pound center. Like we said before, Martino is smart, smart enough to avoid collisions with O’Rear.

Jacobson thinks Martino has a chance to blossom as a player, now that he’s concentrating on basketball.

“He’s got an opportunity to really make some strides, simply because now he’s really just working on one sport,” Jacobson said.

 ”From what we’ve seen to this point in practice, he’s really done a good job offensively,” Jacobson said. “He’s shot the ball well, he’s put it on the floor, he’s created things. He’s done some things offensively that maybe I didn’t know he’d be able to do this early. So that’s been a real positive. And like I said, defensively he’s been good.”

Jacobson wants Martino to work on his ballhandling, so he can play a variety of offensive positions for the Panthers.

“For him, I don’t need to talk about, ‘Hey, get in the gym extra, make sure you’re doing this,’” Jacobson remarked. “He’s doing all those things, and that’s really good for a true freshman.”

Martino is obviously a hard worker. He squeezed just about everything out of his high school career at Kennedy, except perhaps for one thing.

“The one thing that I could have done was been a state champion with the baseball team,” he said. “All those guys are my buddies. It was great to see them win, but I’ll say this, I could have been out there.”

Martino watched his buddies win the state title at Principal Park in Des Moines this past July, but he had to watch from the stands.

“But if I had kept playing baseball,” he said, “I probably would not have ended up being here, because then I would not have been able to concentrate on AAU (basketball, with the Iowa Barnstormers). So pros and cons.”

Martino has not selected a field of study at UNI, but he’s thinking about law school some day.

See?

Smart.