Wisconsin basketball's advanced camp brings back former Badger Matthew Mors
· Yahoo Sports
MADISON – As Wisconsin men’s basketball hosted several prospects at its annual advanced camp, one of the Badgers’ camp coaches had a different perspective from what he previously experienced at the Kohl Center.
“I know that I was in their shoes,” Matthew Mors said, referring to the camp attendees. “But to be on the flip side of it is just kind of surreal.”
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Mors really had been in their shoes.
Wisconsin’s Joe Krabbenhoft recruited the three-time South Dakota Gatorade Boys Player of the Year to the Badgers. A homesick Mors redshirted his first year and subsequently transferred to South Dakota State, but it set up a unique reunion nonetheless.
“When I committed here in high school, I knew that this place was a special place,” Mors said, standing on the Kohl Center’s Ab Nicholas Court. “The coaching staff, facilities, everything about this place has always been elite.”
As he returned to the place where his college basketball career began, it was advantageous for the next life chapter he is beginning. UW-Parkside hired Mors in May to be a graduate assistant coach.
He is working under first-year UW-Parkside head coach Kyle Blackbourn, who was Greg Gard’s director of recruiting and scouting while Mors was last in Madison. Blackbourn saw the advanced camp as an opportunity for Mors.
“He wanted me to try out a few different things, and this is one of them,” Mors said. “I was able to watch a little bit of talent while also learning from some really good, elite coaches.”
Mors' chance to learn from his former coaches happened as scores of high school recruits (and camp coaches like Mors) came to Madison for what has usually been an important date on UW's recruiting calendar. (This year, UW offered Kevin Wilson, a point guard in the 2028 class who showed several impressive facets of his game at the camp.)
Gard stopped over during the camp to catch up with Mors – now a fellow coach rather than his ex-player. The Madison reunion also gave Mors a chance to catch up with Krabbenhoft, now UW’s associate head coach, for “quite a while.”
“Everybody here is really good about building relationships,” Mors said. “One of the biggest things that you can do as a college coach is grow your tree, so being able to reconnect with some coaches who recruited me really heavily in high school … and be able to reconnect, I think, was pretty cool.”
It also took Mors back to a place with some memories, even with his short UW tenure. The home win over a top-10 Purdue team quickly comes to mind four-plus years later. (It didn’t hurt that the last-second hero of that game, Chucky Hepburn, was his roommate.)
“When Chucky hit the bankshot to win and we clinched a share of the Big Ten title, that’s obviously right up there,” Mors said. “But just the moments that you have every single day with the guys is a lot of fun.”
Mors then made more memories at South Dakota State, all while playing his home games about 130 miles away from his hometown of Yankton, South Dakota.
The 6-foot-7 forward appeared in every game over the next four years and started every game of his junior and senior seasons with the Jackrabbits. He averaged 8.4 points and shot 51.2% as a senior.
“I don’t regret anything,” Mors said. “I loved all four years at South Dakota State. It was awesome for me and my family to be back home and be around one another. They were able to come to just about every single game.”
Mors could have taken a couple routes after finishing his last year of eligibility in 2025-26. Coaching obviously was one path. He also could have played overseas. But with coaching, he “knew that this is something that I always wanted to do.”
So after getting married in April and graduating in May, he chose to start his college coaching career in the same state where his college playing career started.
“Being at Parkside, I’ll be able to be really hands-on right away,” Mors said. “One of the biggest things that I wanted to do is go somewhere where I’ll be able to recruit or be involved with the scout and the big stuff that goes on every single day in college basketball.”
The former Badger’s big opportunity may come with a little nostalgia as well.
“I was by my college dorm and walked in by that,” Mors said. “That was funny just to walk by that.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin basketball's advanced camp brings back former Badger