The position has been filled.
On Monday, UCLA men’s basketball coach Ben Howland announced the hiring of Phil Mathews as an assistant coach. Mathews replaces Donny Daniels, who left the staff earlier this offseason to take a similar position at Gonzaga.
The new hiring reunites a pair of old friends who, as Howland put it, first met each other “way, way back in the day.” The relationship dates back 28 years to when Howland was an assistant coach at UC Santa Barbara, and Mathews at Cal State Fullerton.
“I’ve always had great respect for him as a coach, as a recruiter,” said Howland of Mathews. “He’s a good coach, a very good recruiter, a good person, he’ll represent the university in a first-class fashion, so I feel very fortunate.”
Mathews will leave his job as an assistant on Doc Sadler’s staff at Nebraska, where he coached for the past four seasons. His previous Division 1 position was at the University of San Francisco, where he was head coach from 1995 to 2004. Mathews is a Southern California native who played collegiately at UC Irvine, the same school that he began his coaching career at as an assistant in 1973.
“Growing up in Southern California, I grew up as a Bruin fan,” Mathews said. “UCLA is a great place to play and coach at. You always want that opportunity as a young player and young coach to come back to Southern California to be a part of a great tradition.”
According to Howland, one of the Mathews’ most appealing assets is his network of relationships and contacts in the region, and four years in the Big 12 gives him exposure on the national stage. Additionally, the new assistant is the father of Jordan Mathews, a current high school freshman who could end up being a major recruit as his high school career progresses.
“He has great relationships,” Howland said, “What’s important to me is the ties that he has to the Southern California community, as that is our number one place where we recruit from.”
Although he has spent the bulk of his coaching career away from Los Angeles, Mathews does have one connection to next year’s UCLA team: At Ventura College, where he was from 1985 to 1995, Mathews coached the father and uncle of incoming freshman Tyler Lamb.