TEMPE, Ariz. — Remy Martin’s bloom of hair has an ebullient quality to it, shimmying as he shakes a defender, bopping when he stops and pops, swooshing back as if he’s in a wind tunnel as he flashes through the lane.

It’s in his game, too, in the way the Arizona State junior guard whips crowd-roaring, no-look passes through his legs, raises up for 3s with the game on the line or bursts in front of a defender for a charge.

And it’s in his personality, his natural joy for life revving up teammates and fans on the court, lifting the spirits of everyone he meets off it.

“He has a positive way that’s infectious,” Sun Devils coach Bobby Hurley said.

Martin came to Arizona State as a star recruit and quickly became a favorite.

Playing as if every bounce of the ball were his last, Martin burst off the bench as a momentum-changing sixth man as a freshman.

The 6-foot guard played with a confidence beyond his years, flicking no-look passes, fearlessly driving to the basket. He picked up opposing point guards full court, nodding his bouncy hair in approval after inevitably finding a way under their skin.

Martin still plays with the same this-could-be-the-last-play abandon as a junior, though has morphed into a level-minded floor leader to balance Hurley’s volcanic sideline demeanor.

Martin has range that extends practically to Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport and, with a 40-inch standing vertical leap, has the hops to finish at the rim against bigger players. He’s the rare guard with a sublime mid-range game, usually stopping and popping while the defender is still in mid backpedal, and is one of the nation’s fastest end-to-end players with a ball in his hand.

With his 24-point performance in a one-point, comeback win over rival Arizona, Martin became the first Pac-12 player in 23 years to start conference play with six straight 20-point games.

Martin took over down the stretch in a win over Stanford on Feb. 14, scoring 11 points in the final seven minutes. Two days later, he scored 15 of his 22 points in the final 11 minutes in a win over California, giving the Sun Devils their first Pac-12 weekend road sweep in 10 years.

The Pac-12’s second-leading scorer at 19.1 points per game, Martin is a front-runner for conference player of the year in what could be a two-player race with Oregon’s Payton Pritchard. He’s has been the key cog during a seven-game winning streak that moved Arizona State, a team picked to finish sixth, to the top of the Pac-12 standings.

“... What he’s done is remarkable. He’s a heck of a player,” Arizona coach Sean Miller said, unprompted. “He’s willed them to so many wins. Not only do I think he’s one of the best players in the Pac-12, he’s one of the best guards in the country.”