From UT to UConn — Love and Basketball for Former Spartan

Spartan Spotlight: Mathew Johnson ’17

Photo courtesy of Johnson

By Holly Neumann

Former Spartan point guard Mathew Johnson ’17 is sitting courtside at the top of men’s college basketball.

He’s on staff at the University of Connecticut, the 2023 NCAA Div. I men’s basketball national championship team, in charge of film production and coordinating recruiting. He also assists in planning practices and game strategy. He’s been with the Huskies for four seasons and worked his way up from graduate assistant, a role he took after spending two years after UT as an accountant in Tampa.

Basketball is a 12-hours-a-day, often seven-days-a-week, holidays-and-weekends kind of career, Johnson said, where “no one is really going to pat you on the back” because that’s the job, and, no, he doesn’t ever get to enjoy a game just as a fan.

At the same time, he loves it. Johnson’s dream is to be a Div. I head coach.

Johnson’s time at UT set the foundation for his goal, and not just in playing experience. Today,

he studies recruits and opponents much as he did for his UT accounting classes, saying his scouting report is akin to the study guides he used to make. Plus, former Spartan Coach Richard Schmidt is who first taught Johnson how to handle a team.

“Throughout your basketball journey, you play for a bunch of different coaches, and you develop different styles based on … the way that you've been coached,” Johnson said.

“(Schmidt) taught me how to manage a bunch of different personalities on a college level. … When you get to college, it’s people from all over the country. Like, I played with people from Dallas, Los Angeles, Tampa, New York. To try to manage those personalities and try to make it all fit together, (Schmidt) opened my eyes to that perspective, and at UConn, I’ve learned a little more about it.”

UConn finished the 2022-2023 season 31-8, beating San Diego State University 76-59 in the NCAA final for the powerhouse Huskies’ fifth national championship. More than 72,000 fans packed NRG Stadium in Houston, and 14 million people watched on TV. As thrilling as the experience was, though, Johnson’s favorite moment of the postseason run was actually some March Madness of his own.

His wife, Cyanna Fryar ’17, was pregnant with their second child, and as the Huskies marched toward the tournament, her due date approached.

“All year, we were, like, what’s going to happen if we keep winning?” Johnson said.

In the end, Johnson was in Las Vegas for the Sweet 16 when Fryar went into labor. “We fired up a ticket for me to fly out,” Johnson said, and he was eastward bound within three hours.

Johnson then spent the day and night with his new family of four, and the next day, he was back in the air, landing 90 minutes before the Huskies took the court.

“So that was, obviously, really exciting,” Johnson said. “Crazy stressful, but it was great.”