Coach Matt Richards reflects on the Men’s Basketball Season

By Nickolas Acker

I had the opportunity to speak with head coach Matthew Richards of the men’s basketball team after the season had ended. Coach Richards provided an insight into what the basketball team has done, where it’s been, and where it’s going.

Wow, what a year for the Men’s Basketball Team. You posted an astonishing 16-1 conference record, and won the YSCC Coach of the Year award. Since you’ve taken over the helm as head coach, the Seawolves Basketball Team has been a constant presence at the YSCC Playoffs. So, you’ve got to be feeling pretty good at this point with the way the team has been performing and going to nationals again.
[i]We were 16-0 in regular season, so first time in school history going undefeated for the conference. We won our first two games in the playoffs and then lost in the conference championship but, a lot of firsts for the program; first time we swept everybody and were undefeated in the regular season, so pretty happy about that.[i]

Since you’ve taken over as head coach of the Seawolves the basketball team has really been a constant presence in the playoffs, it’s incredible.
[i]Yeah, I mean consistency helps. We’ve had consistency with our staff. Certainly the school supports what we’re trying to do and I think that makes a huge difference. Without that you’re not going to get the consistency you need, but if you’re good, I mean we’ve been between top 3 and 4 every year, and then obviously in our good years we’ve been the top team, but we’re really happy with the consistency we’ve been able to maintain for the last twelve years.[i]

You’ve got to be feeling pretty good about the team at this point.
[i]Very happy about it. You know we’ve had a lot of players come through that have bought into what we’ve wanted the program to look like, so we’ve had great kids, and the consistency of coaching staff has really made a difference.[i]

You’re talking about great players, Atencio Martin and Tyheem Simon are both seniors and graduating this year and are pretty big performers on the floor. Are you concerned with filling their shoes next season?
[i]When you have players like that you never really fill their shoes or replace them, y’know you hope that your returning players can fill some of that void and then you hope the players you’re recruiting can assist in that. Both players had outstanding years, so yeah, tough to replace but I like the core nucleus we have coming back and recruiting has been going pretty well at this point, so I feel pretty good that we’ll be able to again be at the level we want to be with the team.[i]

Throughout the season one thing that really impressed me was not only that your coaching was phenomenal, but also that your assistant coaching staff was really impressive and made a big contribution.
[i]They are sort of the unsung heroes of our program, y’know Chad Cichon has been with me for twelve years and does an outstanding job. Ryan Chicoine I think really developed our post players this year, Jack Tolan, Carlos Gonzalez, Jack Morgan, those guys played at a high level and was really a lot to do with how much time he spent with them. I have a former player of mine, Joe Jardine, who’s passionate and absolutely doesn’t let the guys take a day off. So yeah those guys did outstanding work for the program and was obviously reflective in our performance this year.[i]

So it seems from what I’ve seen observing the team, you don’t really have one or two star players that do the majority of the scoring and are backed up by the rest of the team. It seems like you have a really deep bench and accumulate a lot of bench points. Of course every team wants to be good on offense and defense, but do you think the team focused more on offense or defense this past year?
[i]I think this year’s team bought into the fact that we would be our best if we made defense a priority, and that we had a next-man-up type of philosophy. It was reflective in the all conference voting; we had one player make all conference.[i]

And you were second place in rebounding in the conference.
[i]Right, so y’know when you look at those things it kind of shows you how we play and the players bought into it. We had seven different players lead us in scoring at one time or another in the season, I mean that’s pretty impressive to have seven guys say that in that particular game they lead us in scoring. I’m doing player meetings right now with the players and every single one of them said when asked, “What was our greatest attribute for the season?” and they said, “It was our team chemistry.” So they really bought into the fact that it’s not one individual, it’s a team. If you take him away, fine we’ll just have him step up, and I think that that’s very difficult to scout from an opponent’s stand point. Everyone during the season said that the top priority was winning. Period. It didn’t matter if this kid was in the line, or if this kid got all the accolades, it was about winning. They wanted to win as a group and experience those together as a group. That’s rare, and you don’t always get that. That’s why this season was, for me, a very rewarding season.[i]

Going forward, and I realize that the season only just ended, do you see any large changes in what you’ve been doing as far as coaching and roster lineup are concerned going into next season, and in the future do you see the same amount of success in the Yankee Small College Conference?
[i]Well, I hope so. I mean I hope we can bottle up what we did this year and do it again, but I’ve been around long enough and coached long enough to know that it doesn’t really happen that way. So what we try and do is meet with our returning players and ask them some very directed questions in terms of what do they want to be coming back the second year, and then how do they plan on meeting that, and then we recruit specifically not only needs within our program but character. I think that’s been the difference that we’ve approached the last few years that we’ve been trying to recruit the best character players that we can. I don’t want to have talented players that don’t have the high character that we’re looking for, because I think that’s what’s created our team chemistry too.
So, what we’ll do next year and how we play will be dependent on how much work the guys do in the offseason and then what our recruits can add coming in. But would I like to keep playing an up-tempo style where defensively we make it difficult for other teams? Absolutely. Do I want to continue to play a style where guys understand that it’s “I’m sacrificing myself personally for our team”? Yes. You want all those things, and we’ll see hopefully that that happens, and if it does I expect similar results, but time will tell.[i]

There you have it people, it looks like the basketball team has a bright future ahead of it and they’ve worked hard for their success. Keep up the good work, Coach Richards, and good luck to the team next season!