Ericka Mattingly’s Reputation Soaring at the Right Time
Anyone familiar with mid-major college basketball has heard of UMKC guard Ericka Mattingly. In her senior season, Mattingly is working to make her name even more widely recognized.
Mattingly’s ambition is clear in everything she does related to basketball. After spending two years at Butler Community College, where she was an NJCAA Division I Third-Team All-American, she landed in Kansas City because she saw it as an opportunity to take on a challenge.
“I think I was excited for a program that wasn’t very good,” Mattingly stated. “[It was] a program that we could turn around [with] the vision that Coach Jacie [Hoyt] and the coaching staff had here.”
Mattingly also attributes part of the decision to UMKC’s proximity to her hometown of Wichita, Kansas, and the family atmosphere she experienced in the program. Hoyt says that Mattingly’s joining the program was the result of a relationship that had been budding over years since Hoyt was an assistant at Kansas State.
It didn’t take long for Mattingly to have her desired impact on the Roos. In her first year with UMKC in 2018–19, she averaged 19.9 points, 6.1 rebounds, 5.6 assists and 3.0 steals per game. Her assists, scoring and steals average all ranked in the top 30 in the nation, as did her volume of free throw attempts and conversions. Only six players in the country made more free throws per game than Mattingly did last season. Her contributions are bigger than just one season, however. They are historic at UMKC.
November 29, 2018, was the first date in which Mattingly wrote her name into the UMKC record books. On that date, she became just the second player in Roos history to record a triple-double. Her 15 points, 12 assists and 10 rebounds comprised only the seventh triple-double in Western Athletic Conference history and earned her conference Player of the Week honors. Mattingly was just getting warmed up, however.
Less than a month later at home against SIU Edwardsville, Mattingly came just one assist short of her second career triple-double with 26 points and 14 rebounds. She would go on to record a double-double two more times over the next four weeks. Then came the February 9, 2019, game against California Baptist.
Mattingly finished that game with 28 points, 14 rebounds and 10 assists, again leading her team to a win. If any coaches or players at the mid-major level were still unaware of Mattingly, especially in the WAC, they were willfully ignorant at that point.
Mattingly closed out her junior season by earning All-WAC tournament team honors as a junior, partially thanks to her 37-point, 10-rebound showing in the semifinals against New Mexico State. Hoyt reflected upon that performance in explaining why the UMKC offense goes through Mattingly.
“I think with the strength of our schedule — we have had a lot of close games — I think she’s someone who we want the ball to be in her hands,” Hoyt disclosed. “She almost had 40 points in the conference tournament semifinals and she’s earned it. We always talk about the shots you get to take in games are a result of what you do in practice and your work outside of practice hours. She’s done everything to deserve the green light to take that many shots.”
Although UMKC didn’t qualify for the NCAA tournament last season, the nation is on notice in regards to Mattingly. Through her team’s first 13 games this season, Mattingly ranks 27th in the nation in field goal attempts, taking 56.1% of her team’s shots. She is also 58th in the country in steals and 59th in assists.
Because of the volume of the offense that goes through Mattingly, her opponents are understandably focusing on slowing her. She welcomes the extra attention, however, and has had success despite the added obstacles.
“I think I’ve gotten a sense that, since it is harder for me to score and people are keying more on me because of last year’s play, I need to do extra things for my teammates,” Mattingly explained. “I’m going to crash hard or I’m going to get them open and make them score, so I’m just focusing on that.”
Hoyt says that opponents have thrown everything at Mattingly thus far, with diminishing returns on their investment.
“She always has ten eyes on her whenever she has the ball and we know that,” Hoyt commented. “Sometimes that looks like denying the ball. Sometimes that looks like gapping back. We have pretty much seen it all. We’ve seen a triangle and two. We’ve seen a diamond and one. The biggest thing is helping her to understand how to attack all those different defenses.”
Attack she has. After posting a stat line of 18 points, eight assists and seven steals on Dec. 14 against Kansas State, Mattingly posted her first double-double of 2019–20 against Eastern Washington six days later. She has her entire senior WAC season ahead of her to continue to attack and add to her legacy at the collegiate level. Mattingly described what that looks like right now.
“I think just being able to score at all three levels,” she commented. “Continuing to work on my game, continuing to get difficult shots in our offense because people have been keying on me and just continuing to work with my teammates. With them knowing that since people are keyed on me that they have really open shots and they can get open shots in our offense are things we have really been talking about in practice lately and are going to be extremely successful for us this year.”
Regardless of how successful she is for the remainder of her senior year at UMKC, Mattingly’s hardcourt hopes extend further. She plans to play professionally and her play already merits a lot of attention, landing her on the Her Hoop Stats Mid-Major Player of the Year Watch list earlier this year, for example.
Mattingly credits Oregon’s Sabrina Ionescu as inspiration for her game and if she has her way, she could face Ionescu on a court or play alongside her professionally many times. Anyone who doubts Mattingly’s ability to do that should listen to Hoyt.
“She hates to lose and she loves to win,” Hoyt said. “She’s a team player but the biggest thing is her hatred for losing.”
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