If you only knew a few basic facts, Matt Smith might seem an unlikely candidate to be a Division I basketball player, let alone a key player for a contending team at that level. In fact, his time at Northeastern is really the culmination of what has been a basketball life in a basketball family.
Smith was born in Billerica, a suburb northwest of Boston, but grew up in Littleton, which is further away from Boston in that direction. That makes him the closest thing to a hometown kid on this Husky team. His family moved there when he was in the fourth grade, and like Billerica, there wasn’t much basketball interest in that area. Move further north from Boston, and you get to areas where sports like baseball and hockey rule.
He began playing in the first grade in a local youth league that his mother was a coordinator for. Although his father played at Harvard (and also played baseball), his mother was the one who got him playing basketball at an early age. When the family moved to Littleton, his mother started a local travel team in the area. When he got to junior high school, he had to go to neighboring Acton to find a travel team to play with because there wasn’t one already there.
While his mother got him started in basketball, his father became a bigger presence in that area of his life later on. He later coached Matt’s travel team, and when he moved to another level in high school, taught him more of the game himself. That went a long way to helping him become a player that Husky head coach Bill Coen readily describes as having a very high basketball I.Q.
Smith said his father also had a good feel for just how active to be, as he wasn’t controlling and knew when to take a step back and let his son be a kid. It’s a refreshing story in an age when nutty parents who get too involved with their kid’s basketball life are seemingly a dime a dozen, and Smith’s development is an example for such parents to heed.
Although basketball has always been there, baseball was Smith’s favorite sport growing up. He played it often at a wide variety of positions, but a couple of coaches he didn’t like took away some of the enjoyment of it later on. As a freshman at Lawrence Academy, he played, but then had to make a decision since the baseball season conflicts with the basketball spring travel season and he had a growth spurt around that time. From the eighth grade into early in his sophomore year, he went from 6’1″ to 6’5″.
After four years at Lawrence Academy, one of which resulted in a NEPSAC Class C title, Smith opted for a prep year. He didn’t have much interest at the Division I level and wasn’t getting great exposure from his school or travel team, so besides making the choice to head to the western part of Massachusetts to Northfield Mount Hermon, he also switched travel teams. The latter helped him get some Division I interest, and in September of that year he committed to Northeastern. A few other schools got involved, including a couple of offers to pass up the prep year to enroll that fall and some academic powerhouses if he could hold out until late in the academic year, but he stayed with Northeastern.
Helping his decision to come to Huntington Ave was his older brother, who graduated from Northeastern last spring and now lives in South Boston. His brother helped urge him on to come there while he was being recruited. Though his brother played basketball growing up, he didn’t get the height that Matt did and ended his playing days earlier.
Smith is the only Husky senior who played for the prior coaching staff at the school, although he didn’t play much. He got into just six games and played 18 minutes as a freshman, and then Ron Everhart left for Duquesne. It didn’t take him long to like Coen and his staff after they took over, and he was eager to find out where he might fit in to what they wanted to do.
As a sophomore, he played in 21 games, but still played just three minutes a game. Last year, he was a part-time starter, but played in fewer games, and there was a balancing act as to how best to utilize him since moving a player to the bench can always have a negative impact. Although transferring crossed his mind at times during his career, he liked Northeastern enough that he had no intention of leaving.
It was at some point during that junior year that Smith’s senior season would come to fruition. Coen describes him as being mentally tough, and it showed from this. While a lot of players might quit, physically or even mentally, Smith dug in and kept working. It wouldn’t be until this year that there would be anything on the bottom line to show for it, but in doing that and finding his role, he became a productive teammate and is now a key contributor on a team contending in the Colonial Athletic Association.
“If you adopt that attitude, the basketball Gods will smile at you and repay you for it,” Coen said.
Known among fans and others close to the program for his big game in the team’s Red-Black intra-squad scrimmage last year, Smith is shooting better than 37 percent from long range this season. He’s played in a career-high 27 games and has surpassed his three-season totals in minutes, three-pointers and points.
As his college career draws to a close, Smith is undecided on just what his next step will be. The journalism major and communication minor likes sports journalism, and he likes the broadcast side more than print. One of his options is to move back home over the summer, and graduate school is among the possibilities before jump-starting his career.
A career in basketball in some capacity is something he would also like, and that’s another option he could pursue. Considering the life he has led in the sport, starting at home, that would only be fitting. He’s already led a basketball life in a basketball family, even if he was in an area not known for such people.
