Graves Adds Final Assistant To Staff
South Alabama’s head basketball coach Matt Graves announced the addition of Dan Matic to finish his staff. | Photo usajaguars.com
South Alabama’s head basketball coach Matt Graves completed his staff on Thursday when he announced the addition of former Eastern Illinois assistant Dan Matic to his staff.
Matic is a native of Brooklyn, New York and spent the 2012-13 season at Eastern Illinois as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator. One of his recruits led all of the Ohio Valley Conference in scoring as a freshmen as the Panthers qualified for the conference tournament for the first time in three seasons.
Prior to EIU, he was an assistant at Olney Central College in Olney, Ill. In his lone season at OCC, they won 27 games and won the Great Rivers Athletic Conference championship for the first time in 14 years. Under his tutalige, Trivante Bloodman earned player of the year honors in the GRAC and the team finished second in the NJCAA region 24 Tournament, the best finish by the school since 1994. Five players, including Bloodman who signed with Mississippi State, went on to play at NCAA Division I schools.
Matic also worked as a video coordinator for the USA National Basketball team in 2009 in the 2009 World University Games in Serbia. The team led by Wisconsin head coach Bo Ryan brought home the bronze medal. Matic then served two seasons as a graduate assistant and academic mentor at Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Matic began his coaching career in 2001 with AAU Team Takeover of New York City. During his six seasons as head coach he led the squad to a sixth-place finish at AAU nationals and had 16 player earn scholarships to Division I schools. Devin Eubanks, who went to West Virginia and is now with the L.A. Lakers, and Ed Davis, who went to North Carolina and now the Toronto Raptors, were two who earned scholarships.