Matthew Paton has accepted a position with the Basketball Australia Centre of Excellence (CoE) women’s program as assistant coach.
Paton’s appointment follows the earlier announcement that Kristen Veal will be the program’s Head Coach, and comes almost twenty years after the two coaches first met during their time at the Australian Institute of Sport.
Taking on a volunteer coaching position from 1998-2001 at the AIS, Paton also lived on campus as a supervisor during the same period Veal represented the AIS in the WNBL.
He then moved to Switzerland in 2002 as the Head Coach of basketball club BC Sarnen, before returning home to take on an Assistant Coach position with the Hunter Pirates in the NBL. Following his stint in the NBL, he led the Maitland Mustangs ABA women for two seasons in the Waratah League, before again venturing abroad.
In 2004, Paton traveled to the USA to coach with the women’s program at Antelope Valley College in California, followed by four years (2005-09) as an Assistant Coach with the University of Hawai’i NCAA Division 1 women’s college program.
Most recently, Paton was an Assistant Coach with the Mount Gambier Pioneers in the SEABL, helping them achieve an unprecedented four-peat of South Conference Championships from 2013-2016, and winning back-to-back SEABL Championships in 2014 and 2015. During this time in Mount Gambier, he also served as the Head Coach of the Titans Basketball Academy at Tenison Woods College, coaching several state and national representatives, as well as multiple US college scholarship student-athletes.
“Matt is committed to providing a daily training environment that is enjoyable, challenging and holistic in nature,” said Basketball Australia General Manager High Performance, Jan Stirling.
“He will strive at all times to deliver the world’s best practices to our athletes and teach and educate them to become the best they can be and Basketball Australia is confident in his ability to do so.”
In further positive news for the CoE women’s program, Sarah Conlon’s Personal Excellence Coordinator role has been promoted to a full-time position.
This will ensure Conlon is available to give every athlete the best possible guidance when it comes to their choices and decisions that will become available to them, post their high school years.
In the spirit of reconciliation Basketball Australia acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.