Steppin’ up big time

At 5-foot-11, Kamilah Martin doesn’t have the build of an elite low-post player. Her quiet persona doesn’t scream "leader!" for all to hear.

But just like how she carves out space under the basket with superior footwork and anticipation, the Hawaii women’s basketball junior forward put herself in position to be those things, anyway.

Behind Martin’s team-bests of 16.1 points and 9.5 rebounds per game, the Rainbow Wahine (8-9) are threatening for their first winning record since 2006-07. They’ve proven they can hang with the best the Big West Conference has to offer so far with a 4-2 league record.

That’s something for a program that hasn’t been to an NCAA tournament since 1998.

"She wants to be the one to get the team back there," first-year coach Laura Beeman said.

Martin and her teammates can solidify their standing as a team to beat today, but must get past hot Cal Poly to do so. The Mustangs have won their past four, including a triple-overtime win at Pacific.

Martin’s hard work down low yielded her 1,000th career point in a 71-63 win at UC Davis last Saturday, making her the 17th Rainbow Wahine player to achieve that feat. Her rebounds aren’t far behind at 811, placing her in top-four territory in that category in just the middle of her third season.

She stands third in scoring and second in rebounding in the Big West this season.

"I just want to thank my coaches and my teammates because they have been great and I think anybody who has watched us can see a big difference between the teams and see how much better we have gotten over the years," Martin said.

This season, under a new head coach, she was asked to do something more than just grab boards and score inside.

She had to lead.

That was no small thing for someone who would scarcely talk to strangers upon her arrival out of San Francisco powerhouse Sacred Heart Cathedral Prep, where she was a part of state and national championship teams through 2010. She was asked to rebound there, but not much more.

Martin, then Kamilah Jackson, was a double-double machine under the coach who recruited her, Dana Takahara-Dias, piling up 29 over the past two seasons. But she had the luxury of others willing to speak up when necessary.

Not now.

Asked about her newfound leadership, Martin offered an unsteady, "uhh," before laughing and speaking with confidence.

"I’m kidding. I do (embrace it)," she said. "It’s definitely hard to be a leader because people are looking at you every day, what you do on and off the court. It’s just, you have to get better every day. I’m learning new stuff from myself, my teammates and my coaches. It’s definitely hard, but I’m becoming more of a leader every day."

There was never a question among her local teammates that Hawaii was a good fit for her.

"She has meshed in with us really well," junior Shawna Kuehu said with a laugh. "Even to the point of talking semi-pidgin. … She tries to be a part of it, as much as she can. It’s fun Mia when that comes out. She loves it here, the fans are really good to her."

Beeman routinely pulls Martin aside for impromptu player-coach conferences on the subject. It was inevitable that a player of Martin’s skills would be seen as a leader — she just needed to be a positive one and not one that was difficult to read.

Martin appreciates the straightforward approach.

"Everything I’ve asked Mia to do, she’s been like, ‘OK,’" Beeman said. "The buy-in has been unbelievable, and that is something you don’t get as a first-year head coach, often. But I could not ask Mia to have made any more changes, be any more accepting, be any more positive than where she is right now."

A big part of that has to do with a huge step Martin took over the past year. She married Jameson Raphael Martin, a Marine Corps sergeant, in secret last Feb. 24 at Ala Moana Beach Park. Martin told her family about it over the summer and they had a well-received second ceremony in the offseason in her native Oakland.

"It was great, just to meet somebody that really cares about you … and wants to make you better as a person and a player," Martin said. "He’s definitely been there for me, so when I’ve wanted to shoot, he’s been out there rebounding for me, in the rain. He always tries to make me better when we play 1-on-1. I just have to thank him for making me better this year, too."

Beeman, who was an assistant coach with the WNBA’s L.A. Sparks, sees pro potential in Martin, though it might mean establishing herself overseas first and expanding her range and pick-and-roll game.

Martin has time to become great here. Over the next season and a half, she could approach Wahine numbers achieved only by two-time All-American Judy Mosley, who scored 2,479 points and had 1,441 rebounds.

That will come in time. Greatness in the present means leading the way to Big West glory. The Wahine know where to look for that — right underneath the basket.