HoopDirt.com first reported this morning that Murray State assistant Matt McMahon would be hired by new head coach Eric Konkol at Louisiana Tech. The move was made official this afternoon – McMahon has been named as the new associate head coach for the Bulldogs.
The announcement comes one day after Konkol added the first piece with Tony Skinn filling one of the positions as assistant coach.
“Matt McMahon is an experienced and respected coach with a relentless work ethic,” Konkol said. “He has played and coached in the NCAA Tournament and is a tremendous recruiter. Our student-athletes will feel his energy every day and benefit from his attention to detail and genuine interest in their development. We are very happy to have Matt join the Louisiana Tech family.”
McMahon was previously an assistant coach at Murray State for four years, including this past season when the Racers finished 29-6 while setting league records with 25 straight victories and going a perfect 16-0 in Ohio Valley Conference play to notch the regular season title.
“My family and I are extremely excited about the opportunity to join Eric Konkol and his coaching staff at Louisiana Tech,” McMahon said. “I have been fortunate to know Eric for a long time and have always looked forward to working with him one day. Eric has a tremendous basketball mind, has proven to be an outstanding recruiter and has been instrumental in developing players at the highest level. I cannot wait to be part of the championship tradition at LA Tech.”
One of the star players McMahon helped coach this past season for the Racers in route to an NIT quarterfinal appearance was Associated Press All-America Honorable Mention and Lute Olson Player of the Year Cameron Payne.
Payne ranked 13th in the nation in scoring with an average of 20.2 points per game while becoming just the fifth MSU player to score at least 700 points in a single season. He also dished out 6.0 assists per game which ranked 15th in the country.
During the 2013-14 season, McMahon was part of a Racers squad that was one of only four teams in NCAA Division I to end the season with a victory as the team won five straight games to claim the CollegeInsider.com Tournament championship.
In McMahon’s first two seasons at Murray State, he helped coach another Associated Press All-America selection in Isaiah Canaan. The two-time OVC Player of the Year became the sixth player in Racer history to score 2,000 points and was a second round draft pick of the Houston Rockets in the 2013 NBA Draft.
McMahon was also part of the amazing run by the Racers during the 2011-12 season that saw MSU go 31-2 and spend 13 weeks in the national polls, rising as high as No. 10. The Racers were the only undefeated NCAA Division I road team and was the final undefeated team, recording 23 straight victories before suffering their first loss.
Murray State ended up enjoying its highest seed ever in the NCAA Tournament (No. 6) and won its third game in the Big Dance in program history with a victory over Colorado State. The 31 wins set a school and OVC record.
Prior to joining MSU, McMahon spent the 2010-11 season with coach Buzz Peterson at UNC Wilmington. He came to UNCW from his alma mater Appalachian State where he was an assistant coach for 10 seasons.
Following a successful playing career at ASU where he was a two-year starter for the Mountaineers while helping the team earn three straight Southern Conference North Division championships and an NCAA Tournament appearance in 2000, he made the transition from player to coach under Houston Fancher.
After one season with the Mountaineers, he spent the 2001-02 season as an administrative assistant at Tennessee before returning back to ASU in the spring of 2002.
During his time at Appalachian State the team won four SoCon regular season titles (two of which were division titles) and took part in the 2007 NIT and the 2010 CollegeInsider.com Tournament, making McMahon a contributor to three of ASU’s four postseason appearances in program history.
The Mountaineers ended up completing the winningest four-year stretch in school history with 80 victories from 2007-10, breaking the 79-win mark he helped set during his playing career.
In 2008, he was voted as the sixth best assistant coach nationally in a survey of 450 NCAA Division I assistant coaches conducted by FoxSports.com.
McMahon, a native of Oak Ridge, Tenn., earned a degree in marketing from Appalachian State. His wife Mary is a former basketball standout at Furman. The couple has three children – Maris, Mabry and Mason.
His hiring is pending the approval of the Board of Supervisors for the University of Louisiana System.
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