Jason Matthews: Another Good One Who Got Away

PITTSBURGH — Of all the mourning going on in Southern California about losing the top high school basketball players to the East Coast, nobody seemed to shed any tears when Jason Matthews of St. Monica in Santa Monica signed with the University of Pittsburgh.

Maybe that’s because Matthews wasn’t even the top recruit on the Mariner team that reached the Southern Section 5-A semifinals, a position that went to center Brian Williams, now at Maryland. Matthews was also overshadowed as a junior, when fellow guard Earl Duncan was a senior and on his way to Syracuse.

Maybe it’s because Pitt wasn’t viewed as a recruiting enemy for West Coast schools, as is Syracuse.

Or maybe it’s because they were wrong.

Matthews, a 6-foot 3-inch shooting guard, has started every game for the Panthers as a freshman and is averaging 9.4 points.

His jump from high school to college was made easier by playing in the summer college league at Morningside High in Inglewood.

“In the beginning, I had a tough time adjusting physically and to how much faster the tempo was,” said Matthews, an All-Southern Section 5-A choice last season after averaging 27 points. “But playing in that league prevented me having many of the same problems here.”

But not all of them.

Matthews was averaging 10.1 points a game heading into Big East play. In the conference opener at Georgetown, however, he scored seven points, making just two of seven shots and committing six turnovers, and followed that up with four points at home against St. John’s.

But Matthews made three of four three-point shots and scored 13 points in an 85-73 win over Villanova last Saturday.