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I am now at a point where I am dreading getting this letter because every Single year is Division 4.

Division 4, Division 4.

The letter came I remember getting out of that letterbox.

I took it inside and I put it on the kitchen counter.

I'm looking at this letter, I can't bring myself to open it.

The heartbreak that I can remember feeling of what that letter was going to share to tell me was just killing me.

Three days went by.

I had to convince myself we have to just rip the band aid off.

And I remember coming home looking at the letter and just thinking, I can't delay this anymore.

Like I need to know which direction I'm going.

Matt Mann is a basketball shooting coach and the founder of Skills Within Hoops.

Mann's journey began in Australia where, with no formal training available, he taught himself basketball fundamentals using makeshift equipment and a relentless drive for improvement, eventually playing professionally in five different countries.

Today, he channels his experiences into a thriving platform that transforms players into confident, consistent and strategic scorers.

His training is backed by mentorship from the NBA's top skills trainer Drew Hanlon and shooting expert John Townsend.

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Grab pen and paper before you listen to this episode with Matt Mann, basketball shooting coach and founder of Skills Within Hoops.

Hello and welcome to the Hoopets podcast.

It's Mike Clemsing here tonight without my co host Jason Sunkel.

But I am pleased to be joined by basketball shooting coach Matt Mann.

Matt, welcome to the Hoopets pod.

Hi Mike.

How you going Mike?

Great.

Excited to have you on.

Looking forward to diving into all the things that you are doing as far as training kids and helping them to become better shooters.

Let's start by going back in time to intuit when you were a kid.

Tell me a little bit about how you got into the game of basketball when you were younger.

Sure.

Just to start here, I just want to thank you for having me.

I really appreciate that and I'm looking forward to having a chat with you.

So the way that it all started for me was quite interesting.

I was actually, I grew up in Australia in the south central part of Australia in a city called Adelaide.

It's a lot like Las Vegas and Phoenix.

So it's a lot.

Lots of dry desert heat, lots of sunshine.

So from about five or six years old I was playing cricket.

So you might be familiar with cricket, you know, it's sort of like baseball.

So I was playing cricket quite a lot and I played that for basically nine years.

And the reason I was playing cricket was because my older Cousin, who's about 12 years older than me, I just looked up to him like an absolute legend and I just wanted to do anything and everything that he did because he was like the coolest guy on the planet and I just wanted to do what he did so I could be like him.

Fast forward till I was, you know, about 15 years old.

So like I said, I've been playing cricket for about nine years before this and that was like the only sport I'd really done.

I mean I'd done swimming, but cricket was mainly it.

Basically it was on a Friday afternoon.

One of my best friends in the second year of high school.

So in Australia we start high school from year eight.

So I know in America they sort of start year nine in high school.

In Australia we start in year eight.

So this was year nine, second year of high school for me.

It was Friday afternoon and we were at high school.

My good friend basically came up to me at the end of high school and said, we have a game tomorrow, we've got a basketball game tomorrow and we've only got four players.

Like some of our guys are sick and they're out and they're unavailable.

Can you fill in?

And I was like, man, I don't know the first thing about basketball, so if you can ask anybody else, that would be great.

And he was literally like, matt, I've asked everybody else, like, you're my last resort.

So I was like, gee, thanks, friend.

Like, I'm your last resort.

Like, thank you.

But anyway, I was like, okay, you guys don't have enough numbers.

So I was like, great, I'll help you out.

Just don't expect very much from me.

So next day comes, go and go and help my friend out with his basketball team.

And basically, when our bench, you know, is like, close to the sideline, I went over and to the middle of the jump ball.

After the ball went up, I stuck to that sideline close to our bench.

And all I did for the entire game was run up and down that sideline.

I didn't even go towards the center court.

I literally just stuck from corner to corner, like defense and offense.

Just ran from that corner up and down the sideline the entire game.

I touched the ball zero times because I said to them was, I do not pass me the ball.

I touched the ball zero times.

After that game, I went back home to my mom, and I was like, mom, I had the time of my life.

It was awesome.

I got to run up and down.

There was so much action going on.

And I almost think from that moment, even though I touched the ball zero times, I fell in love with basketball.

And then I begged my mom to take me to the department store, get a basketball.

So we went there, we got just a rubber $5 basketball, and I basically used that basketball from the moment I got home until it was like, you know, late in the evening, to the point where the grip had gone.

It had become so slippery now, and all of that had worn away to the binding and the string from underneath all of that, which was starting to come through.

And I just loved everything about basketball.

Just the.

The feel of the grip in your hands and the release of the ball, and then listening to the ball go through the net and that snap, like that swish of the ball going through the net.

Just everything about basketball I just, like, just fell in love with.

So from that point forward, that's basically all I did.

And I had just those horse blinders on.

Like, that is all I wanted to do.

Like, even going back to high school, all I would think about was just basketball now.

And I had a couple friends that were in primary school that had been playing basketball, you know, for A couple of years before we all went off to high school.

And I remember these couple of guys, they were like best friends and I was like best friends in that group as well.

But, you know, I didn't play basketball.

But they all gave each other the nickname of like Jordan because this guy named Brad was like, you know, the best kid in school.

This other guy named Michael, he gave himself the name of Scotty Pippen.

So these two were just like, you know, a one, two punch at school and, you know, you couldn't beat these guys.

Fast forward couple of years into high school, I think it was the last, yeah, it was the last year in high school.

Our schools ended up playing against each other and you know, I went to like a different school than what they did.

And I had, I knew that we were playing them in the future.

So I dedicated all my time to just getting better because I wanted to show these two guys from primary school that I have not only reached their level, but now I've superseded their level.

So we played them and I ended up dropping like 36 or 38 against this guy Brad, which was given the nickname Jordan back in primary school.

And I remembered, you know, all, all of those things from primary school.

And I wanted to be better than him.

So that was a proud moment for me because they all started basketball when they were like six years old, seven years old.

So they'd already been playing basketball, you know, for a number of years.

And anything that I do, I strive to be one of the best at.

So whether it was like when I was doing cricket or swimming, you know, I want to have the best times in swimming, cricket.

I wanted to be the best bowler and get the most people out, you know, that anybody had done piano.

I wanted to be the best pianist, you know, I could be.

So when I started picking up basketball, it was the same thing.

I just dedicated like all of my time to working on dribbling, shooting, trying to work out all these moves.

So my determination to not only beat these guys from primary school, but to be the best that I could be, you know, just.

It just fuels my determination.

So going back, even thinking about learning how to play basketball, my cousin who I heard mentioned earlier, who's about 12 years older than me back in Australia at this point in time when I was sort of like 15 years old, basketball wasn't that big of a sport.

We had afl, soccer, cricket, that were like the biggest sports for boys in Australia.

So we, we had a thing in Australia called Game of the Week and it was on Saturday nights typically around 2am, 3am and it was only a one hour slot.

So the game had been edited down to like a, you know, about a 45, 50 minute game.

My cousin would record the games on VHS and like I said, it was just a game of the week.

So I would use that VHS for the entire week, give it back.

He would record the next game.

You know, I just watch that.

And all these games where it had Barkley, Kevin Johnson, Hakeem, Jordan, Pippen, you know, Orlando, the supersonics, you know, back then where Sean Kemp was there, Gary Payton, I would literally go frame by frame and break down what Jordan was doing, what Kemp was doing, what Barkley was doing, looking at Hakeem's footwork.

And I would go frame by frame, rewind, frame by frame and watch it rewind and just repeat that process until I feel like I had it down enough that at that point then I'd go outside and I'd practice that move for like an hour, you know, an hour or more, come back inside, watch the game a little bit more and watch for some sort of like move or sweep or you know, one, like a one dribble, pull up or something like that, break it down frame by frame.

And then I'd go back outside and work on that for like another hour.

And that's how I taught myself how to play basketball.

Because everyone else in my family, my mom, she was a swimmer.

My stepdad, he was into rugby and my stepbrother he was into rugby.

So, you know, and my 12 year old, the cousin is 12 year olds, and me, he was into cricket and AFL, so Australian Rules football.

So no one in my family had ever played basketball before.

So no one knew how to really try and help me or what to do or, hey, this is, you know, how you shoot and you follow through and you know, the, the typical basketball techniques, no one in my family knew any of that.

So I worked out everything myself.

And a lot of that came from watching the VHS and breaking that down frame by frame and then going outside and just trying it and just seeing what I could do.

So that's how I got into basketball.

That's an incredible story, Matt.

When you think about just being a kid, going from no exposure at all to the game to an experience where, as you said, you don't touch the ball.

You're just running up and down the court and all of a sudden it just sparks something inside you and boom, now you're becoming this self taught player.

At what point in that development process did you get exposed to a coach.

Like even at the school level, when was the first experience that you had somebody actually whether it was working with you in a practice setting, on a team setting, obviously the, the training side of it, like what you're doing now or what a lot of people are doing or what a lot of players get exposed to, that I'm sure in Australia wasn't that big at the time and obviously even in the United States at that point the training business hadn't taken off.

So what was your first experience with formal coaching?

So I had just developed this love for basketball and it works differently in Australia where if you play for your school, it's more of a, a social sort of thing.

You know, you sort of get some of your mates together and you know, they don't really have tryouts or we call them trials in Australia for school basketball.

It's just like, you know, you just sign up and typically it's you and your mates who sort of get together and you play other schools.

And it's more of a social sort of thing, like an after school activity that you do.

If you want to get serious about basketball in Australia, you join a club.

So I started just falling in love with basketball so much that there was a basketball club down the road called North Adelaide Rockets.

And it was literally like a five or six minute drive from our house.

And I was talking to my mom and I was like, hey, can I go and play like district basketball?

So fast forward there I made a team and it was the under sixteens Division four team.

So just like college over here, Division one is like the best kids.

And in Australia we've got six divisions so Division One being the best, Division Six, basically newbies.

So I ended up making Under 16 Division Four.

My coach, her name was Jean Baines, she was a previous multi Olympian and she played, I think the last Olympics she played for basketball In Australia was 1956 in the Olympics that were held in Melbourne.

So she played for Australia, she was my coach and she was very strict on a lot of different things.

So she taught me a lot about discipline.

And I remember one of the early examples of her discipline was we played this game, we beat this team.

I was doing really, really well that game.

And after the game I basically ran up to the score bench looking for the score sheet because I wanted to see how many points I got.

They had already given the copy to Gene, like our head coach.

So I was like, gene, can I have a look at the score sheet?

You know, I want to see how Much, you know, how many points I got.

And she basically stood there and looked me dead in the eyes and said, do not ever, ever ask how many points you scored ever again.

This is a team game.

It does not matter how many points you win a score.

It's.

It's about the team and whether we either win together or we lose together.

And from that point forward, I have never worried about my stats ever again.

But her discipline during trainings and the level of perfection that she required from every single player was a real eye opener for me.

Coming from the small, you know, 18 months, two years experience, I'd sort of had going to this, like, regimented, Olympian type style, training was just next level.

And that's where I think I learned a lot of habits when it comes to discipline and understanding repetition and understanding fundamentals and how important it is to have that foundation and those fundamentals, because now that allows things to just open up in your game so much.

So that was probably my very first experience coming into such a high level of training like that.

Well, it sounds like you were very, very fortunate in getting an opportunity to play for her as your first coach.

And just all the things that you talked about in terms of fundamentals and discipline and having that instilled in you in your first experience with a formal basketball setting, I'm sure that proved to be invaluable to you as you continue to move on as a player.

So walk us through the remainder of your time as a player and then how getting into the potential of being a coach, how did that start to get onto your radar?

How did you start thinking about that?

So walk us through the rest of your playing career and then how that led to you eventually thinking, hey, maybe I want to get into coaching.

Yeah, sure.

So next year I played again, under 16, is Division 4, went to the trials or tryouts again.

I was expecting, you know, maybe moving up a division because of the work I'd put in, not knowing, you know, much about the politics of basketball and just what it really took to sort of move up in divisions.

So I stuck in Division 4 again for another year that, you know, just stayed as it is.

I developed, developed to the point where I became the main scorer and the main player on, on this team next year, the following year again.

I'm moving up into under 18s now, because you play two years in each, each age category, I'm feeling pretty good about myself.

The, the couple years I've had under Gene, you know, and her tutelage now, I feel like that's pretty good.

That's going to set me up for moving up after these tryouts.

It was back in the day where you would get a letter in the mail, you know, so they didn't have email, you know, back then.

So you go to tryouts, then you're waiting, you know, about a week or two to get the results in the mail.

You get a letter, you open it up, congratulations, you know, you've made under 18.

Division four.

That was a bit of a heartbreak.

I was like, man, that's unreal.

I was like, okay, I can start there.

Not a problem.

And I'll show them that when we go to our first training that maybe we need to jig things around a little bit.

And I can take one of the spots from the Division 3, because Division 1 and Division 2 train together.

Division 3, Division 4 train together.

And then Division 5 and Division 6 trained together just so they have enough numbers to do team drills and, you know, run through things like that.

So that year, new coach, new players, I'm feeling pretty good, you know, had another pretty good, successful year.

Unfortunately, I didn't move up, go to tryouts again next year.

I'm thinking, man, like, I've had another really good year.

I'm going to go to tryouts.

I'm going to give it everything I got following tryouts.

I'm excited to get this letter.

I'm thinking, man, I think I've done so well.

I want to aim for Division 2 because I get all the under 18s together, right?

Under all the under 16s, and everybody, you know, all goes to try us together.

So you've got all the Division 1 players right through to all the Division 6 players.

So I feel like I proved myself enough that maybe I could go if things worked out Division 2.

If not, surely I've locked in Division 3.

Letter comes, I rip it open.

I'm, like, excited to see what it is.

Congratulations.

You've made under 18.

Division four.

You have got to be kidding me.

After all the work that I've put in and the successful seasons I had before that.

And at the end of every season, they do, like, trophy awards and, you know, all that sort of stuff, so.

And under 16s, I got the MVP for the team.

You know, under 18s that first season, I got MVP, best league player.

And I was thinking, man, how did I get Division 4 when I was the best player on the team and I got, like, MVP of the league as well?

I was just like, how, how, how could that be?

So that fueled more fire, you Know, it's almost like I'm one of those people that if you tell me I can't do it, I'm gonna find a way, no matter what it takes to prove someone wrong, that it's, it's achievable.

I.

I play throughout the entire year during multiple trainings.

I am tearing up some of the Division 3 players.

I'm looking over at my coach on the sideline like, can you see what I'm doing here?

Like, And I'm looking at the Division 3 coach like, hey, like, I'm showing up your guys, like, I'm proving to you that I should be on your team.

There is so much frustration because they just will not give me the time of day to even be looked at corner.

Division 3 tournaments in Australia work a little bit differently.

Like, they're typically for longer weekends.

So we don't have, you know, tournaments every weekend.

We have like Australia Day tournaments, which are like three day tournaments.

And that's January 26th sort of weekend.

We have like Easter, Easter weekend tournaments, Queen's birthday weekend tournaments, Christmas tournaments.

So that don't come around, you know, a whole lot.

There was one tournament, we traveled from Adelaide over interstate to a.

A city called Irimpel.

And this was like, like I RL tournament was known for like, being good teams from all over Australia, you know, come and play in I Rimpool.

We go there.

I have such a really good start to the tournament.

There's been a couple days playing.

We're playing three, four, you know, games a day.

I'm playing really, really well.

I'm talking to my coach, like, can you see how well I'm doing?

I'm like, why can't someone see that I can play Division 3?

Like, I can play with those guys even more.

And I remember it was after a game, everyone had packed up their bags.

Everyone sort of like disperted.

And I stayed back and I talked to the coach and I literally just like, you know, a bottle that was about to burst.

I had so much frustration from a lack of understanding about, like, what was going on and why wasn't I being looked at?

Why wasn't I being moved up to Division 3?

I just let my coach have it and I was furious and angry and I was like, you've got to know something.

Like, tell me why I'm stuck here in Division 4.

Basically, at that point, out of the I Rimpel tournament, he came out and said to me, we know you're talented and you're skilled, but I've talked to the Other coaches and we've agreed that we're going to hold you back into Division 4 so that you can really hone your craft and really excel at mastering the skills against sort of maybe lesser skilled kids and kids who are a little bit slower than Division 3 and Division 2.

And it was like a double edged sword where on one hand it was almost like a relief to hear that, but on the other hand it was almost like pulling my hair out because I'm like, why didn't you tell me this before?

Like I would have been okay with that if you just told me so that, you know, that made me feel better that they're holding me back to develop me.

So I was like, okay, that's good.

I can understand that.

I've had my couple years and under 18s now it's time for under 20s.

And I've got to a point where I've like given everything to basketball.

I've given my blood, sweat and tears and felt like I've devoted my life to basketball for these four or five years.

You know, that I've been playing now and we've moved up to the under 20s.

I go to the under 20s tryouts and I'm at a point now where I am thinking, do I hang up the sneakers?

Cause maybe just basketball just isn't for me or do I try and push through and keep going?

So I sort of did like a half and half where the under 20s tryouts came and I told myself I am going to give it my absolute everything.

I'm going to sprint harder than I've ever sprinted before.

You do your 17s.

You know, in a minute I'm going to try and make sure that I get well under a minute for this.

I'm going to play defense the fastest I can play defense, move my feet.

I'm going to sprint, you know, down on recovery when you know is if there's a fast break, I'm going to make sure that I'm the first person back on defense.

I'm going to jump as high as I can to get the rebound.

I made a promise to myself, I'm going to do absolutely everything in my humanly possible way to give it my everything.

And if it doesn't work out, I can walk away knowing that I gave it everything that I possibly could.

There was no questions asked.

I can hang up the sneakers and go, okay.

Basketball just didn't work out for me.

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After these tryouts Same thing We get the letter in the mail, right?

There's that, you know, about a fortnight before you get the letter.

I am now at a point where I am dreading getting this letter because every Single year is Division 4.

Division 4.

Division 4.

The letter came.

I remember getting out of that letterbox.

I took it inside and I put it on the kitchen counter.

I'm looking at this letter.

I.

I can't bring myself to open it.

The heartbreak that I can remember feeling of what that letter was going to share to tell me was was just killing me.

Three days went by.

I had to convince myself we have to just rip the band aid off.

And I remember coming home, looking at the letter and just thinking, I can't delay this anymore.

Like I need to know which direction I'm going.

I open the letter expecting Division 4.

I open it up, read it.

It says, congratulations, you've made a spot in the Division 1 and 2 squad.

At that point, it was a mix of so many feelings, like joy, excitement, disbelief, but also like uncertainty because I'm like, this surely can't be for me.

I think someone's mistyped my name and put me in the wrong category.

It had the, the date and the time on there to show up for the first training session.

So I was like, I'll go, I guess, and I'll find out whether this is actually right.

Expecting this to not be right.

I take my letter with me.

I rock up just a little bit earlier than everybody else because I didn't want the embarrassment of showing up to something where I didn't feel like I deserved to be or where I was going to be welcomed.

So I showed up a little bit early to give myself enough time to leave if that wasn't the right place for me.

The Division 1 coach was named Paul.

I showed him the letter and I was like, paul, I know we've never met before.

My name's Matt.

I received the letter.

It says, I'm supposed to be here for this training.

Can you confirm whether this is actually True or not, and without any doubt, he said to me, yes, I want you here.

You are supposed to be here.

And again, I just paused and tried to take that in for a minute, thinking, is this guy thinking that this is me?

Like, is he thinking that I am who he thinks I am?

Because I've only ever played Division 4.

That's when he told me, you know, in the basketball arena, you've got your, your one court, all the chairs you know, go up to, like the bleachers, you know, up to the nosebleed sections up there.

He told me that when he was doing his scouting, he was sitting up towards the very back of the stadium chairs, up, up, up, the seating up there.

He heard me communicate the loudest of anybody.

He heard me communicate on defense and offense, and he had never seen or heard of me before.

But during those tryouts, he became aware of who I was purely because of my defensive communication being so loud that I drew attention to myself not knowing that he was even up there.

And he's like, in Division 1, we play a lot of team defense and we rely a lot on communication.

He's like, that is why you're here.

So from that point on, I felt like I had a place to be.

So I played out my under 20s.

My first season under, under 20s, I did okay.

You know, I learned a lot.

There was a lot of bumps through the road, and Tom was our point guard, and he took me under his wing and tried to help me understand how to be a point guard and how to run things at a Division 1 level.

Even though I had players that were supportive like Tom, there were other players on the team who would literally walk into training and just stare me down, just believing that I should not be there.

And there's one player in particular that it was week after week, month after month, that he would just stare me down, not pass me the ball, knock me around when I am on the court just because he thought I didn't deserve to be there.

That, again, helps me prove to other people, you might not think I belong, but I'm going to prove to you that I do.

So understanding that there's only one more season Left of under 20s, I talked to my coach about making a bit of a change.

And after you play under 20s, most people quit basketball after that, because after that, it becomes a men's league now.

So now you're going into the men's league, which is more like the, you know, 21 to 25 year olds.

So it's a lot of sort of like, you know, college age type players, you know.

And I told my coach and I said, I want to try and take a leap ahead of everybody else at my age level.

I talked to him about going to the men's coach and talking to him about me wanting to play men's.

There was one Sunday afternoon and it was following our training, everybody had cleared out.

The men's coach was down there, and they weren't training for about another hour or so.

But on that day, he just came early and I saw him sitting over there going through his papers and I thought, you know what?

This is a moment in time that I need to take advantage of.

And I was terrified to go after him and talk to him because he had never, you know, I'd never talked to him before.

I'd never even really, like, knew who this guy was.

I just knew through just recent learnings who the actual, you know, Division 1 coach was for the men's basketball.

And I always made a promise to myself that I'll try and take advantage of every single moment that I have.

And I sat there shaking in my boots, him sitting over there, and I'm like, again, this is a similar situation where I just have to rip the band aid off like I did with that letter.

I have to go and find out.

I went over and I talked to him, I introduced myself to him and I said, I would love to just come and train with a Division 1, Division 2 men's teams.

I'm not expecting any court time or anything like that.

I just want to get better.

And by, you know, I'm not going to get as good by still sticking in under 20s.

I need to play against people who are bigger, stronger, faster than me.

Without hesitation.

He's like, I know who you are.

Come along.

We got training tomorrow.

This is a time and place.

Come, come train.

I was like, I cannot believe he just accepted that and took me on.

Like, I did not expect that at all.

Like, I was preparing myself for the rejection.

And, you know, who are you and why do you think you deserve to be here?

And, you know, like, lots of no thanks.

But that moment again, I was filled with so much, like, joy and excitement to be like, oh my God, someone is willing to give me a chance.

So I went there and for like the better part of eight or nine months, all I did was just train with these guys.

And I got knocked around, like, because, you know, I'm just a sort of skinny point guard that, you know, I didn't do a lot of weight training sort of back in those days.

So I go there, these guys are so fast, so good, so strong.

But I just kept coming back, you know, it's almost like, you know, when Alan, you see Allen Iverson, you know, get knocked down and he just comes straight back at you, you know, it's almost.

Almost one of those people that almost crave, you know, getting hit and then coming back and go, you know, I'm come, I'm coming back at you.

So about eight or nine months went past, and then the coach offered me a uniform to play in the Men's Division 1 reserves.

So from there I ended up playing the Division 1 reserves, working my way up to playing Division 1.

And I actually got recruited by another team that their point guard was leaving to go play professional basketball.

And he asked me to basically, you know, if I would be interested in coming over and playing point guard for their team.

So I believe I'm pretty respectful.

I called a meeting at the end of one of the trainings for the current club that I was training at, and I got everyone together and I basically told them, I've got some I want to share with you guys, and I want it to come from me.

I don't want any.

He say, she say anything like that, you know, around the club or around the league.

I want you guys to hear it straight from the horse's mouth.

And I told them about the opportunity and I said, you know, if you guys want me to stay here, I will stay.

But they've asked me, you know, and I'm interested in going over there and with the coach, which I talked to earlier and got his approval.

And, you know, I had the respect of the teammates and I wanted to show them respect and, you know, tell them about the opportunity that I had.

And most of them were, like, really excited for me and they're like, yeah, 100%, like, that's an opportunity.

It is going to suck that you leave, and obviously we would want you here.

But if you're getting an opportunity to go and run this Division 1 team as a point guard, they're like, you.

You've got to take that opportunity.

So I took that opportunity from there.

Basically, the professional team in Adelaide called the Adelaide 36ers, they were holding a lot of tryouts because they were going to get, like, some, you know, development players, and they were looking for, like, new, new players, and they.

They held, you know, different tryouts at different locations to give, like, you know, a lot of different players opportunities.

You're only supposed to register for one location.

I was a little bit cheeky and registered for two locations.

I don't think anyone ever picked up on the fact that I went to two tryouts because I, I was just so desperate to become a professional player that I'm sort of bending the rules a little bit because this is my dream now.

My dream is to, to play professional.

You know, that, that's, that's my goal, that's my dream, to do that.

So I remember going to, to both of these tryouts.

Long story short, I got a letter in the mail from the Adelaide 36ers and I still have it today.

And my mom, my mother has it in her filing cabinet.

And it's a, it's a congratulatory letter from the 36ers saying, Congratulations, you've been selected as one of the developed development players for the 36ers.

So again I was like, yes, like someone has given me an opportunity.

Like I'm starting to edge that little bit closer to my dream.

So I ended up training, you know, with the 36s are like a development player.

Then the worst thing that you could imagine at this point in time, I'm driving to the hoop on a fast break.

We are going one on one.

And funny enough, the guy who was guarding me, he actually played on our team the year before.

And him and I, we would always clash heads.

We would butt heads at training constantly.

The season began, we played some games.

Our team got the rebound outlet to me at the half court.

This other guy who was on our team, he was like basically at center court and we're both sprinting towards the basket.

It's like becoming like a race, right?

It's a one on one battle.

It gets to about the, where the foul line is.

I've got the ball in my left hand, he's on my right hip, he's got his arm bar on my hip.

And I know I put a lot of work in in the off season.

He did not.

He had put on a lot of weight, he had slowed down.

So I think basketball sort of ending for him.

I thought one quick good hard push and I'm going to get in front of him and I'm going to finish.

At that point in time, he nudged me.

My quad went to my left, my shin going down to my foot went to my right and my knee hyperextended backwards.

At the same time.

Snap.

My ACL torn in half.

I'm laying on the ground, like with adrenaline, not knowing what the heck is going on.

The game continues on and we've got all these 6, 8, 6 10, 7 foot guys that are coming down now, you know, rebounding and playing offense.

I'm laying on my back on the sideline.

And it was actually the opposition's doctor, the team doctor, who got her daughter to run up the stairs to the front office of the stadium that we were playing at and call an ambulance.

Because no one, the rest didn't stop the game.

They just let it keep going.

And my team knew.

I talked to them after.

My team knew the moment that I didn't get back up, they knew something was wrong because they knew every time I hit the ground, I'm straight back up.

But there's one time I was down on the ground, they knew something was wrong.

Five or ten minutes go by.

There's a hospital just down the road from the, from the stadium.

No one's there yet.

The, the opposition's team doctor got her daughter to run back upstairs again to find out, like, you know, where the ambulance is at.

The lady in the front office tells her, my apologies, I forgot, I'll call an ambulance now.

I'm like, are you kidding me?

You forgot to call an ambulance?

And then within a blink of an eye, they were there.

Took me over to the hospital and by this time, it's about midnight now, and my mother's come to meet me there.

My girlfriend, she's there.

My girlfriend at the time, she's there.

And you know how like mothers have like this sixth sense of things, right?

They've always just got this unique sense for picking up on things.

This doctor comes in, moves my knee around a little bit and goes, oh, I think you sort of just like bruised your knee, you know, he's like, maybe just stay off it for about six weeks, you know, and then sort of get back into playing after that.

My mother's just like, things just don't.

They don't seem right.

So anyway, we go home with the 36ers.

We have a place called Sports Medium.

And that's where all the professional surgeons and doctors and nutritionists and dietitians.

That's where, you know, you can get access to all these guys.

So we caught up, made an appointment, went in there.

First thing in the morning, I'm sitting in this room, this doctor walks in.

He was barely even in there for a few seconds, looks at my knee, he's like, you've torn your acl.

And I was like, what are you talking about?

Like, you haven't even looked at my knee.

You haven't even done anything.

So anyway, he Picks it up.

He holds my knee and puts his hand under my calf and turns my leg clockwise where my shin is.

And he's like, your leg should not twist like this.

It's supposed to bend this way.

It is not supposed to rotate this way.

That's how I know you've done your acl.

I was like, man, I'm not sure what that means, but I was like, you know, like, what's, what's the recovery going to be?

Surgery.

This, this, this hearing surgery just frightened the life out of me.

And he was basically like, this is going to be about a 12, 12 month recovery.

That was a stab in the heart.

Like, I've never had 12 minutes away from basketball since I first started playing, let alone 12 months.

I was like, oh my God, that this is just gonna tear me up.

And so I made a joke to him.

I was like, the other doctor we saw, he said, it's gonna be about six weeks.

Can I take that?

I was like, I'd much rather that.

But he's like, that's not, that's not gonna happen.

So had my surgery, took me 14 months to recover before I could get back on the court and actually just start running up and down the court in a straight line, not even zigzagging, putting pressure on anything like that.

Fast forward, you know, a little bit, a little bit more.

I get an opportunity to go play overseas in England.

So I go play overseas in England, an opportunity comes over to go play in Germany.

So I skipped over to Germany.

Things didn't work out over there, so I went back to England, spent a little bit more time in England, then had an opportunity to go to Canada.

So I played in Canada for a while and then made my way down to America from there.

So I wanted to go to the, the summer league down in Las Vegas and try out for the NBA.

So that didn't, that didn't work out.

And then from there, that's sort of basically where the playing career had sort of like started to wrap up a little bit.

I had met my current wife in Mexico and so she was living in Seattle.

I'm living up in Vancouver, up in Canada.

And you know, it's only like about a three hour drive.

So I'd go visit her, she would come and visit me.

Basically it got to a point where like, are you going to move to Canada or am I going to move to America?

So it was easier for me to pack up my life and move to America.

So we did that.

Kid you not.

I basically crossed the border Just before COVID happens.

So I get into America and they're like, basically, welcome to America.

Stay home.

So, you know, I'm like, is this how you treat everybody who's coming to America?

You know, that's how you treat all your, you know, all your new, new, new arrivals.

So now, now that we're living through Covid, everything's dead.

Like, nothing's going on.

No one's working.

I'm waiting for my green card to come in, so trying to think about how I can earn, like a bit of cash.

We ended up running into one of my wife's friends in Safeway and hey, what have you been doing, like, during COVID She's with her six year old boy and she's like, we just got back, you know, from the basketball courts.

You know, I've been trying to help him stay active, teach him a little bit of basketball.

My wife is like, man, that's awesome.

Matt knows so much about basketball.

You know, maybe we could work something out.

Not a problem.

I basically go and train him and just, just help him with, like, basic, you know, coordination and, you know, fundamentals and just the very, very basics.

His mother loved it, started telling everybody about it.

So word of mouth starts, you know, coming, coming my direction.

And all these people start reaching out.

Hey, you know, can you train my son?

Can you train my daughter?

You know, can you do this?

So I started thinking, man, maybe I could turn this into, like a bit of a business.

So I started with just a small, small handful of kids.

Three months later, I've got 72 kids on the books, and I was like, wow, this is just blown up to something that I did not even expect.

So basically from there I started training all these kids, start looking up drills, and, you know, I didn't really know anything about, you know, NBA trainers or even training as a business.

I'm just trying to think of all the drills that I did and what I did to work on my fundamentals and, you know, what I did to develop myself.

And that's what I started, you know, working with these kids.

So I started trying to think of who else is out there that I could, you know, get some drills and skills and stuff from.

I ended up becoming friends with Drew Hanlon, who's, you know, very well known MBA skills trainer.

And long story short, we become, you know, pretty good mates.

And I learned a lot from him.

And now, you know, I go down to Portland and, you know, I help run clinics down there where there's just him and me and, you know, I've been to his retreats in Las Vegas.

I've been down to help, you know, work out all his NBA players down in la.

And from there I basically got in touch with Dave Severance, who I think now works for Indiana, John Townsend, who's, you know, an NBA shooting coach.

So he's.

He's become a mentor of mine, especially when it comes to, like, shooting.

So he's basically told me everything that I know about shooting.

You, you're going to know about shooting?

Yeah.

I've talked with Phil Handy.

So that's how basically I went from playing basketball and went through all of my experience to wrapping up my playing experience and getting into training and skills training.

And that.

That wasn't even something that I'd even thought of or dreamt of doing.

It just so happened to be Covid and nothing was going on and it sort of just spiked from there.

And just with my love and obsession with basketball now that's all I do is watch film, study, learn shooting techniques from Drew, from John, and really understand the nuances that it takes to become, like, a really good shooter.

So, yeah, that's.

That's basically my story of starting basketball and how I got into training players.

So, Matt, I think what we've just discovered here is that part one of the Mat man podcast is the story of your playing career and how you got into training.

And part two that we're going to have to have you back for is to dive further into the training techniques, the relationships with the guys that you just mentioned, and talk to you a little bit more about that experience.

But before we get out tonight, I want to give you a chance to share.

How can people get in touch with you, reach out to you, whether you want to share, email, website, social media, whatever you feel comfortable with.

And then after you do that, I'll jump back in and wrap things up.

Yeah, a lot of players reach out to me on Instagram, so it's at Skills Within Hoops.

You can also email me at Info skills within Hoops.com.

there's the website skills within Hoops.com so you can reach out to me anywhere through those channels.

Perfect.

Matt, can I thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule tonight to jump on with us?

Really appreciate it.

And to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode of.

Thanks.

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