LOS ANGELES — Somewhere in the middle of a massive maize-and-gold celebration on the Staples Center court after Michigan’s 58-54 win against Florida State, Charles Matthews found Wolverines assistant DeAndre Haynes and wrapped his arms around him in a bear hug.
“After all we’ve been through,” Matthews told Haynes, “we’re here.”
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Matthews was brilliant against Florida State.
The 6-6 sophomore scored 10 of Michigan’s 26 first-half points and finished with 17 points, eight rebounds and two blocked shots. On the heels of 18 points against Texas A&M, 11 against Houston and 20 against Montana, Matthews was named the West Region’s Most Outstanding Player.
In that moment, in that celebration of a spot in the Final Four, Haynes couldn’t help but think back to his initial interaction with Matthews, almost eight months ago, shortly after Haynes accepted a position on head coach John Beilein’s staff at Michigan in early August.
“When I first got the job here, he came to me on the first day of practice,” Haynes told Sporting News in the victorious Michigan locker room. “He talked about some of the things he’d been through, sitting out, about how much he was ready to play. He was like, ‘I’ve been waiting a long time for this moment, to be in this moment and to get on the floor.’ ”
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Matthews’ journey is one of persistence and growth.
He was a top-50 recruit out of high school, and Michigan wasn’t even on his radar. He went to Kentucky, a key part of yet another one of John Calipari’s stellar recruiting classes, but that season didn’t go even remotely to Matthews’s script. He never found his way into Kentucky’s rotation; he saw just single-digit minutes in 17 of his 36 games.
He transferred to Michigan after the season.
“I feel like I just needed a different fit, different scenery. I understand basketball is not an equal-opportunity sport,” Matthews said. “You’re not just going to come in and play. You might play, you might not. You’ve just got to work through it.
“Kentucky was a great experience for me. Unbelievable coaching staff, unbelievable culture and environment there, but I just felt like I wanted a different fit.”
Without any of the extenuating circumstances the NCAA deemed worthy of waiving its “transfers sit a year” rule Matthews had to spend an entire season away from official competition. He decided to make the most of what he saw as an opportunity.
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Matthews came to college with big dreams.
But after a season of limited game competition at Kentucky, he had to find a competitive outlet away from actual game environments. He had a choice to make, about how he was going to approach that transfer year.
“You’re got to increase your work ethic. You’ve got to lock in and see ways you can be beneficial to the team next year and also to the team the year you’re sitting out,” Matthews told SN. “I was on the scout team, so I would try and make those practices as competitive and game-like as possible for myself.
“Of course, you can’t simulate that live-game experience, but when I was sitting there playing against the starting group, I would really try to go at those guys with all I had. I wouldn’t take it like, ‘Just another day at practice.’ You’re preparing for something bigger.”
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Matthews was a monster on the scout team.
“He was not fun to play against, quite honestly,” Michigan senior Duncan Robinson said, with a grin on his face, after the Florida State victory. “He’s so physical with his drives and such a good athlete. His skill has grown so much since he’s come here, and that’s a testament to how much work he’s put in.”
For Beilein, though, just scoring on the scout team isn’t nearly enough.
Ask anyone who’s ever played for Beilein, and they’ll tell you the coach is a bit obsessive about turnovers. He despises them. Hates ’em, with a white-hot fiery passion.
“Crazy. He’s crazy,” Matthews said during Friday’s media/practice day, with a grin. “We’ll be like, ‘C’mon, coach. Sometimes you’re gonna turn the ball over in the game.’ He’s like, ‘NOT AT MICHIGAN!’
“I respect him. He harps on us because of that, but we win because of that. We limit other team’s possessions because we take care of the ball.”
Matthews felt the wrath of Beilein’s turnover obsession as much as anyone.
“We could not stop him sometimes on the scout team, but he also would have so many turnovers on the scout team,” Beilein told SN after the Florida State game. “We kept a chart for him. I wanted him to see this.”
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Matthews got the message.
“In practice last year, he used to stop practice and just scream out, ‘Turnover, Matthews! Turnover, Matthews!’ And do that all the time,” Matthews said with a grin. “Now I see it happen to Jordan (Poole) and I just laugh. I tell him, ‘It’s alright, man. You’ll get through it and it’ll make you better.’
“He’s not trying to kill your confidence. It’s a fine line between coaching and somebody just harping on you and now a player starts to second-guess himself and be tentative on the court. You can’t play not to turn the ball over, but you have to play to be careful. Coach would tell me, take 50/50 shots, but don’t try to make 50/50 plays. That makes it much easier for me.”
Matthews had one turnover in 39 minutes against a Florida State team that relentlessly hounds opposing teams. Think about this: Michigan’s played eight postseason games now — four in the Big Ten Tournament and four in the NCAA Tournament — and Matthews has had more than one turnover in just one of those seven games.
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Lessons were learned during that year of opportunity.
“That was his time to shine. When you’re a transfer and you have to sit out that year, you don’t get those game reps,” Michigan assistant Saddi Washington told SN. “So, yes, those practices and pickup games, that’s your game time. That’s your time. He did an unbelievable job last year pushing those guys, the Zak Irvins and the Derrick Waltons and just making them better. In turn, when we fast-forward to this season, he was ready to go. He was chomping at the bit. I’m just so proud of him.”
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Charles Matthews savors every moment of his time on the ladder ... pic.twitter.com/IJtRfDJ0im
— Ryan Fagan (@ryanfagan) March 25, 2018
Matthews took his time on the ladder, savoring every moment as Michigan fans celebrated the Final Four berth.
He stopped at the top, waving to the crowd with both arms and a huge smile before he cut off his piece of the net. Then he pointed up to the stands before carefully climbing down.
Saddi Washington was hired by Beilein in May 2016, a little more than a month before Matthews chose to play for the Wolverines. He’s watched Matthews’ development with an unabashed sense of pride.
“He probably had a different perspective of who he was as a player coming in,” Washington told SN. “He had to get physically stronger. He had to get healthy. Definitely had to work on different areas of his game. And as he started to see those areas of his game develop and grow, that made it that much more easy to buy in.
“You’ve just got to let life take its course. Everybody has their own path to their greatness. Fortunately his took a detour to Ann Arbor, and he’s doing an unbelievable job with school, doing an unbelievable job with his team. His maturation process has been awesome.”
The player Matthews is now is a long way from the turnover-prone guy who was on the scout team last year. Beilein pointed out that Matthews is approaching 100 assists this season.
“I never would have guessed that coming into this year,” he said. “I’m just watching a kid who gets it. He understands, you go through a process. You just don’t to from high school to the pros. There’s a process, an ‘I need to get better.’ ”
And part of that process is developing confidence. Legitimate confidence, not superficial.
“We meet every day,” Haynes told SN. “He’d say, ‘Dre, we’re going to win the national championship. We’re going to the Final Four.’ He’d really say these things to me. He’s a big, major part of what we’re doing right now. I’m just so happy for him, everything he’s been through, from leaving Kentucky, to coming here to Michigan, to helping us win and get to the Final Four.”
Starring in the Final Four is a long way from running the scout team.
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