Jamie Matthews has been named assistant coach for the Eastern Washington University men's basketball team, new Eagle head coach Kirk Earlywine announced July 25.
The experienced collegiate coach will arrive in Cheney after winning 139 games as a head coach the past nine seasons. Six of those were at Manchester College in North Manchester, Ind., and the last three were at Saginaw Valley State in Michigan. He coached alongside Earlywine when both were assistant coaches at Central Michigan for two seasons from 1993-95.
“I feel very fortunate that Jamie has chosen to join our staff,” said Earlywine, who was named head coach at EWU on June 15. “He had a very good job at Saginaw Valley and a very good team returning. For him to leave such a good situation shows Jamie's belief in our program at Eastern Washington.”
“He has nine years of experience as a head coach, was a player at Ball State that took his team to the NCAA Tournament and he has the added background as the son of an Indiana high school coach,” Earlywine added.
“Those attributes will prove invaluable to me personally and to our basketball program.”
Most recently, Matthews brought the Saginaw Valley program, a Division II school, back to respectability. The 2006-07 Cardinal squad recorded its highest conference placing since the 1997-98 campaign, tying for third in the North Division of the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.
The Cardinals were 30-49 in his three seasons, including an 11-14 record in 2006-07 and 8-10 league mark.
Eastern is coming off a 15-14 season, and a 6-8 finish in the Big Sky Conference that placed them in a tie for fifth in the league. However, tiebreakers kept the Eagles out of the six-team Big Sky Conference Tournament to snap a string of nine-straight berths that ranked as the fifth longest in school history. In 2004, Eastern played in its first-ever NCAA Tournament and the year before made its debut in the NIT.
“It would take a perfect fit for our family to walk away from Saginaw Valley State University after three years of commitment in rebuilding its basketball program,” Matthews said. “Eastern Washington University and Kirk Earlywine are that fit. Eastern Washington University has a rich history of success in the Big Sky Conference in recent years and I cannot wait to get started working toward a Big Sky championship.”
At Manchester, Matthews won 109 games, the third-highest total in school history. He also reached the 100-win mark the fastest of any coach in the college's annals. His nine-year record in 240 games as a head coach is 139-101 for a .579 winning percentage.
His best season came in 1998-99 when the Spartans went 24-5. That squad advanced to the NCAA Division III Sweet 16 and won the Indiana Collegiate Athletic Conference championship. No. 1 Wisconsin-Platteville, a team led by current Wisconsin head coach Bo Ryan, eliminated the team.
Matthews was also named the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) Midwest District Coach of the Year that season, and the team finished 10th in the final NABC Coaches Poll.
Prior to his promotion to the head coaching position at Manchester, Matthews was an assistant coach there from 1995-98 under Dick Hunsaker.
Hunsaker, the current head coach at Utah Valley State, and Earlywine coached together as assistants at Ball State from 1987-89 under Rick Majerus. Matthews was an assistant coach at Central Michigan from 1993-95 with Earlywine.
“Coach Earlywine is one of the best basketball teachers I have been associated with and I am excited to join his staff at Eastern,” Matthews added. “Coach Earlywine and I share a similar philosophy in regards to the game of basketball, recruiting student-athletes of character and also placing academic commitment as the No. 1 priority in our program.”
Matthews earned a bachelor's of science degree in finance from Ball State in 1993 and a master's of arts degree in athletic administration from Central Michigan.
He finished up his collegiate playing career at Ball State in 1992-93, playing for Hunsaker.
The Cardinals finished the season 26-8, won the Mid-American Conference Championship and advanced to the NCAA Tournament.
He scored a career-high 31 points in the MAC Tournament's championship game and earned a position on the All-MAC Tournament Team.
In a 94-72 loss to Kansas in the NCAA Tournament, Matthews scored a team-high 18 points.
He led the league in assists with an average of 6.1 per game.
Matthews also helped Ball State qualify for the 1992 NIT, helping Ball State finish 24-9. The Cardinals were 11-5 in the MAC and lost 58-57 to Miami in the championship game of the MAC Tournament. Matthews played his first two years at Alaska Anchorage and Vincennes, respectively.
Prior to his collegiate playing days, he and his twin brother, Scott,
played for their father, Jim, at New Washington High School in Indiana.
His school had a student body of 200 while playing back in the day of single-class basketball in that state.
The school advanced far in numerous Indiana state tournaments, claiming sectional titles his junior and senior seasons, and placed as high as seventh in the state AP top 20 poll. Matthews was named to the 1989 Indiana All-Star Team.
Matthews was born on Sept. 22, 1970. He and his wife, Kendra, have three daughters, Kamryn (9), Tatum (7) and Mallory (3). His twin brother, Scott, played at Idaho under Larry Eustachy and was an assistant coach for Earlywine in the 1995-96 season at Pfeiffer University in Misenheimer, N.C.
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