Matt Blue joins the Greyhounds for 2024-25 after spending the last eight years working the National Basketball Association (NBA) with its development programs in Asia and Australia. Since 2020, Blue has honed his coaching and connections while serving as a player development coach for the NBA Global Academy located Basketball Australia’s Centre of Excellence at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra.
“I have known Matt as a student-athlete, college assistant and coach in the international game,” said Head Coach Josh Loeffler. “I am so happy to have him with us at Loyola. Very few coaches can instill confidence and develop players like Matt and he has gained invaluable experience coaching at very high levels. He will bring knowledge and expertise from working with some of the very best.”
In Canberra, Blue has led the day-to-day development of top players from around the globe while also coaching teams at NBA Academy events throughout the world.
Prior to his work in Australia, Blue spent three years working at NBA Academy China in Shanghai where he started in 2017 and mentored, among others, the No. 14 selection in the 2019 WNBA Draft, Han Xu.
Blue took eight years of collegiate coaching experience with him to Asia and Australia when he began working for the NBA after spending time at Lafyette College, the University of Hartford and Susquehanna University.
He spent time in Easton, Pennsylvania, working for the Patriot League’s all-time wins leader, Fran O’Hanlon, at Lafayette in 2015-17; with the Leopards, Blue coached two multi-time All-Patriot League honorees, Nick Lindner and Matt Klinewski.
He spent his first stint with O’Hanlon during the 2009-10 season as an assistant coach on the same staff as Loeffler. The Leopards went 19-13 during the season and reached the Patriot League Championship Game.
Blue joined John Gallagher’s staff at Hartford in 2010 and helped the Hawks go from a team that went 8-22 the year prior to his arrival to one that won 17 games in 2012-13 and 2013-14, was a perennial contender in the Northeast Conference (NEC) and advanced to the College Insiders Tournament (CIT) in 2012-2013.
With the Hawks, he coached five players who scored more than 1,300 career points and seven All-NEC players. He got his first collegiate coaching experience in 2008-09 as a member of the staff at NCAA Divisoin III school Susquehanna University, helping the River Hawks to an 18-8 record.
Blue was a team captain as a student-athlete at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, where he led the Saints to the 2007 NCAA Division III Second Round, finishing with a 23-6 record. He was a 43-percent 3-point and 82-percent free-throw shooter during his four years at the school. Blue and Loeffler first crossed paths at St. Lawrence in 2004-05, Blue’s sophomore year, when Loeffler was a graduate assistant coach.
Blue graduated from the Canton, New York, school with a Bachelor of Arts in English in 2007.
