Men’s Basketball: UL’s Marlin, the coach’s son, goes for it

Tim Buckley, The Advertiser, March 15, 2016

 

Coming out his Texas high school a few years ago, Matt Marlin had opportunities to play college basketball.

It could have been at UL, where his father Bob Marlin is the head coach. Or it could have been elsewhere.

“Dad wanted me to come here and walk on,” he said. “I could have gone to a junior college, or a Division III (program) and played.”

He is playing now, spending his one and only college season with a 17-14 Ragin’ Cajuns club that plays Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Wednesday night at the Cajundome in a first-round CollegeInsider.com Tournament game.

But something just didn’t seem quite right back then.

Matt Marlin needed a break from ballin’.

“I was kind of burned out,” he said, “and decided I wanted to go be independent, you know, and be on my own.

“One of my good friends said, ‘College is about being independent, developing your own identity.’ … I decided that’s what I wanted to do. But I still played all the time with my buddies — rec, and pickup, and intramurals.”

Around the same time, Marlin also would drop in to UL and visit his father in Lafayette.

“In the summers,” he said, “I’d be here playing pickup with the guys and shooting. … Anytime the Cajuns were in Texas, I’d be there.”

Now he’s here.

And Bob Marlin couldn’t be happier he is.

“He’s been in the locker rooms, he’s been with our teams,” the elder Marlin said. “He’s been cutting down the nets since he was seven months old and we won the (NJCAA) national championship at Pensacola Junior College (in 1993, when Marlin was head coach there).

“He was a part (as a family member) of three NCAA Tournaments (two when Marlin coached Sam Houston State, one when UL went in 2014), and now he’s dressed.

“It’s a great thing,” Marlin added, “and I’m very blessed that I’ve been able to coach my son, and I’m proud that he chose to do this.”

Matt Marlin really did take the circuitous route before arriving, though.

First, he spent a year as a student at Texas-San Antonio. Then he went to where he often longed to be, attending the University of Texas in Austin.

It was at UT that Marlin frequently found himself playing again, often doing so at 4,000-seat Gregory Gymnasium, home of the Longhorns basketball team until 1977, home of Texas’ women’s volleyball team now and a place any student can play for free.

As Bob Marlin suggested earlier this season, the level of competition there is a long step compared to an NCAA Division I conference like the Sun Belt, in which UL plays.

But there is serious hoops going on nonetheless, and while Matt Marlin was a part of it he said “there definitely were times” that what he could have done from the get-go crept into the back of his mind.

“I got better (as a player) too,” he said, “and it took that for me to realize how much I enjoyed basketball — it being a fun thing — after my high school experience.

“We had some really competitive games in Austin, and, yeah, sometimes I would think of that, and then people, my friends, were like, ‘Oh, man, your dad’s the coach at UL; you should have gone and played.’

“But,” Marlin added, “I think it all worked out perfectly.”

So what made Marlin finally decide to pull the trigger, and do what his dad wanted all along?

“That’s a good question,” said Marlin, generously listed at 6-foot and 170 pounds.

“I was flirting with the idea a little bit (last) summer, and I’d been working out a lot, and playing, and I was over here working out with Shawn (Long, UL’s Sun Belt Conference Player of the Year) in August, and it just kind of clicked — ‘I’m gonna do it; why not?’ ”

There was one other thought, too.

It perhaps was the biggest of them all.

And that was this:

“ ‘I might regret not doing it,’ ” said Marlin said, who played his high school ball at College Park High in The Woodlands, Texas, close to Houston and not far from where Bob Marlin previously was head coach at Sam Houston in Huntsville, Texas.

So Matt Marlin decided there should be no what-if’s.

Current Cajun teammates, after all, had already accepted him and “made me feel like one of the guys.”

Besides, Marlin said, “I love Lafayette. It’s a great city. I love being around it. I grew up with it. It feels like a home, almost.”

So it seemed to finally made sense.

It was a now-or-never decision because of Marlin’s academic standing, being so close to graduating.

Yet, it wasn’t an easy decision at all.

Opting to be the coach’s son on any team never is, because it potentially comes with plenty of pros but perhaps some cons, too.

That’s especially the case when the kid doesn’t come with superstar billing.

“I talked to Coach (Michael) Murphy (UL’s director of basketball operations),” Marlin said, “and he kind of encouraged me, because I was on the fence a little bit.”

Ultimately?

“I just kind of thought … ‘Go for it,’ ” Marlin said.

So Marlin, who will eventually get his degree from UT, went for it. He transferred to UL for a year and now he’s treated like any Cajun player — on good days, and bad.

He was on the floor for the late going of UL’s Sun Belt Tournament win over South Alabama last Friday night in New Orleans, before the Cajuns lost in the semifinals to No. 1 seed Arkansas-Little Rock.

He had two points, a rebound and a steal in a December win over McNeese State.

When he made his first and only career 3-pointer, in a win over Loyola of New Orleans back in November, he knew deep down his father was proud, even if he might not have been openly braggin’ on his boy.

And when he went for a rebound instead of getting back during one game earlier this season, he knew what was coming.

“ ‘I know, I know, I know,’ ” Matt Marlin said he thought to himself while anticipating the lecture on transition defense he knew was coming.

“Someone told me after the game I kind of rolled my eyes at him. But it was funny, because I knew exactly while I was doing it I was doing wrong.”

Marlin is, remember, a coach’s son.

And now he’s one who played for that coach.

He’s appeared in only eight games as a reserve point guard, and with six points he’s averaging 0.8 per game.

But he’s carried his weight in Cajun practices, and is as much a part of the team as the double-digit scorers and the rotation regulars.

“It’s meant a lot,” Matt Marlin said.

“I grew up in the gym, around my dad, around the team. And it was always been a dream of mine to play. And especially with my dad, it’s been a great experience.

“It’s been a lot of fun,” he added. “I’ve learned a lot, and getting to do it around my dad has been amazing.”

The feelings are similar for Marlin’s father.

The younger Marlin sensed that as the two walked onto the court for Senior Day at the Cajundome before UL’s recent regular season-ending win over Georgia Southern.

Marlin coached some of UL’s other seniors — Long, Kasey Shepherd, Steven Wronkoski – for four years.

But one of them has been around, one way or another, for about 23 years.

“I’ve been to a lot of Senior Days,” Bob Marlin said, “but never had one when your son was there. … It means a lot to me.”

  UL (17-14) vs. TEXAS A&M CORPUS CHRISTI (25-7)

   WHAT: CollegeInsider.com Tournament (CIT), opening-round game

   WHERE: Cajundome (11,500)

   WHEN: 7:15 p.m. Wednesday

   RADIO: KHXT 107.9 FM with Steve Peloquin

   TV: None

   TICKET INFO: Tickets are $30 (courtside), $15 (first and second levels), $10 (second-level curves) and $7 (student companion). The first 1,000 UL students will be admitted free, courtesy of Coca Cola and Buffalo Wild Wings, by presenting a valid UL ID.

   ABOUT THE OPPONENT: Texas A&M-Corpus Christi will be playing in its third straight CIT. … The Islanders are coming off a loss to Stephen F. Austin in the Southland Conference title game. … Six of Corpus Christi’s seven losses are to NCAA Tournament teams (Texas, Texas A&M, Wisconsin and Stephen F. Austin three times). … Leading scorers: Rashawn Thomas (16.8 points per game), Hameed Ali (11.3 ppg), Bryce Douvier (10.5), Brandon Pye (10.3)

   ABOUT THE CAJUNS: UL beat South Alabama in its opening game but lost to No. 1 seed Arkansas-Little Rock in the Sun Belt Conference Tournament last week. … The Cajuns, who played in last season’s CIT, have lost 6-of-8. … Leading scorers: Shawn Long (19.5 ppg), Kasey Shepherd (10.6). … With 2,305 total points now, including 25 vs. UALR, Long moved past Kevin Brooks (2,294) and into third place on UL’s all-time scoring list behind Andrew Toney (2,526) and Bo Lamar (3,493). … UL leads the all-time series 4-0, with the first meeting coming in 1957 and the last in 1999.