Head for the game
Shannon Mathews isn’t the biggest, strongest, fastest or quickest point guard in the West Coast Conference – just the best. That’s probably because the Gonzaga senior is the smartest. How else to explain her combination of scoring (10.8 for her career), assists (a school-record 538, sixth on the WCC career list) and steals (198, fourth in GU history)?
“I’m not satisfied yet, but I’m on my way,” said Mathews, who has started 101 of 111 games in her career and twice earned all-conference recognition on the court and in the classroom. “I think coming here has turned me into the player I am. We weren’t very good, so I had to make myself better.”
The 5-foot-6 Mathews is averaging 11.2 points, 6.1 assists and 1.7 steals this year as the Bulldogs are putting together the best Division I season in school history. GU (20-2 overall, 9-0 in the WCC) has a nation-best 16-game winning streak and can match the school NAIA record with a weekend home sweep of Pepperdine (tonight at 7) and Loyola Marymount (Saturday at 2 p.m.) that would also wrap up its first conference title since 1988.
“In a lot of ways she is the face of our program … when people come to watch a game, she’s the one they remember,” fifth-year Bulldogs coach Kelly Graves said. “She has the ball in her hands, she has some flash, she’s competitive, that big, bushy hair … people notice that kind of stuff.”
What the coach notices are the intangibles.
“I saw her first with her high school team,” said Graves, who was at Saint Mary’s at the time. “I remember her coach telling me ‘Shandrika Lee (who finished at Pepperdine last year) is great, we’re great, you’ll recognize the 6-2 girl in there, but the one who makes us go is Shannon Mathews. So I paid attention to her and he was right. She was competitive, firing up her teammates. She was just solid with the ball and seemed to make big plays.”
So at a summer AAU tournament, Graves tracked down Mathews’ team.
“I was talking to the coach one day and he said, ‘She’s one of the smartest players I’ve ever coached.’ So I just watched and it seemed that as good as that team was, they weren’t as good when she wasn’t in the game,” Graves said. “She was kind of the glue that held that team together. I think she kind of got lost in the shuffle.”
Graves, who had taken the GU job, and then-assistant Cynthia Mayes, swooped in, turned on the charm and lured a future all-conference guard out of Riverside, Calif.
Or not.
Maybe it was Graves and the Bulldogs who got hustled.
“I wanted to get away from home,” Mathews said. “I really think what I was looking for was I was going to play, we were going to be good eventually and I was going to be part of turning the program around. I knew I could come here and play and be a difference maker.”
That she has, along with classmates Ashley Burke and Raeanna Jewell, who are also sprinkled throughout the GU top 10 lists in a number of categories. The trio will be tied for first in career games played if they make the conference championship game and play in the postseason.
Mathews struggled during an initial 11-18 campaign.
“I was definitely frustrated and disappointed. I was just going through those troubling freshman years. You go from being a star to really being a nobody. It’s a little bit humbling. I had to fight through it, and when I finally got my chance, I had to make the best of it and I did.”
With this class leading the way, the Bulldogs improved quickly. They went 18-12 the last two seasons and tied for second in the WCC both times. Last year they reached the championship game of the conference tournament and were rewarded with a berth in the NIT tournament, the second D-I postseason appearance in school history.
“What has she done for us? Look at the wins and losses,” said Graves, noting the school has only had one other 20-win season at the D-I level. “She’s made an impact in the community … she’s a role model for kids. She’s a great student (3.8 GPA). In my 18 years, I think she’s the smartest basketball player I’ve coached. Now I know what those other coaches meant.”
Others have noticed as well.
“She’s one of the smartest point guards I’ve been around as far as understanding the game and where people are supposed to be,” assistant coach and former Bulldogs star Jennifer Mountain said. “She sees things before they’re actually happening, which is a real good compliment.”
Passion, confidence and those basketball smarts are the keys to Mathews’ success.
“It stems from my father. My family is a basketball family,” she said. “He never taught me just to play, he taught me to think. He didn’t want me to just know what to do. He wanted me to know why to do it.”
Her uncle, Phil Mathews, the former San Francisco men’s coach, also contributed.
“He’s the one who told me if you want to be good, you have to play basketball every day,” she said. “That really stuck and it’s true, too.”
Although Mathews is a journalism major, she is considering following in the footsteps of her mother and sister, both kindergarten teachers. She would also like to try basketball overseas, but for now her focus is on the Bulldogs’ drive to the NCAAs.
“Kelly and the rest of the coaches sold the program, not what it was but what it was going to be,” she said. “All the things they said are coming true.”