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Old family friendship helps Westtown's Mayock find fit at American

07/06/2022, 11:30am EDT
By Josh Verlin

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)

A connection that goes back more than 30 years helped Matt Mayock quickly find his college fit.

The Westtown rising senior first heard from American University head men’s basketball coach Mike Brennan only eight days before his June 28 commitment, a short time for any high school student to go from first hearing about a college to deciding that’s where they want to spend the next four years.


Westtown rising senior Matt Mayock (above) committed to American last week. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

“I visited on Monday [June 27] and I loved every minute of it — great campus, loved all the coaches, all the kids on the team were really nice,” Mayock said, “so I just went home, slept on it, and when I woke up, I was like, yup, American’s the spot for me.”

Brennan and his staff can thank the 1980s Saint Joseph’s women’s hoops staff for helping make Mayock comfortable in such a short period of time. They’re the ones who recruited Alix Burns and Jeanine Reynolds to play on Hawk Hill, starting a friendship that stays strong to this day. Burns, now Alix Mayock, and Reynolds, now Jeanine Delaney, have both raised families full of athletes — including their youngest sons, both named Matthew.

Matt Delaney graduated from St. Augustine Prep (N.J.) in 2021 and spent this past year as a freshman at American, playing in 13 games his first year under Brennan. Even though his on-court role wasn’t huge, seeing a total of 74 minutes (5.7/game) and scoring 30 points (2.3/game), that didn’t stop him from enjoying his experience at the Washington, D.C. institution of about 8,100 undergraduates. 

The Delaney and Mayock families grew up going over to one another’s houses, playing basketball in the driveway, messing around as kids. But Matt Delaney was serious when he was talking to Matt Mayock about the school that could be his future home, how they could be on the court together in a much more formal capacity than ever before.

“He was just telling me how much he liked being there, how much he liked the coaches, and pretty much that there’s no other place that he’d rather be,” Matt Mayock said. “I heard from him that it was a great fit and that he loved it.”

Not much more needed to be said. 

Mayock (above) transferred from Conestoga to Westtown after the 2019-20 season. (Photo: Mark Jordan/CoBL)

And so Mayock ended his recruitment ahead of the July live recruiting periods, taking himself off the board to become American’s first commitment for its 2023 class. Brennan wasn’t the only coach who’d offered; Albany and Princeton’s staffs had both done so as well this spring, though the Tigers had taken a recent commitment at his position.

Brennan and his staff saw Mayock at the Mid-Atlantic Independent School Shootout at Blair Academy during the first June live period weekend and offered that Monday, one week before he visited.

Knowing that scholarships in general have been at a squeeze since the NCAA allowed players affected by the COVID pandemic to play a fifth season of eligibility, Mayock figured it was smart to take a quality option available to him when he had it. After the June live recruiting periods, he was hearing from a list of schools that included Elon, Rhode Island and others, but that wasn’t enough to cause him to delay a decision.

“I had an opportunity at American that I really liked,” he said, “so I wanted to lock in my spot and make sure [...] I actually got it.”

At American, he’ll join a program that last won the Patriot League championship and made it to the NCAA Tournament in 2013-14, Brennan’s first year as head coach. The former Princeton guard is heading into his 10th year at AU, with a 108-151 (.417) record, going 10-22 (5-13 Patriot) last year.

Mayock is just the latest in a line of athletes from his family to play sports at the Division I level. His sister, Katie Mayock, just finished up a four-year career at Saint Joseph’s, where she played in 102 games (39 starts) and was the 2020-21 Big 5 Scholar-Athlete of the Year; older brother Angus Mayock is a pitcher at the University of Connecticut. Their father, Mark Mayock, played football at Boston College, as did their uncle (and future Oakland Raiders GM) Mike Mayock


Mayock (above) is best known as a 3-point shooter, though he's flashed the ability to score off the bounce. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

While Katie and Angus graduated from Conestoga, Matt Mayock transferred from ‘Stoga to Westtown in the 2020 offseason, repeating his sophomore year during the COVID-shortened 2020-21 season and then playing a starting role as the Moose won the Friends’ Schools League and PAISAA championships this spring.

Being teammates with the likes of Dereck Lively II (Duke), Jalen Warley (Florida State), Quin Berger (St. Joe’s) and others currently playing college hoops pushed Mayock on a daily basis.

“I think it was the whole reason I am a Division I athlete now,” he said of the move. “All the [Westtown] coaches have pushed me to be my best self, and obviously playing against all the high-level competition in practice and in games, has helped me more than I can describe.”

Now standing about 6-foot-7, Mayock’s best known as an outside shooter, always looking to break free on the perimeter to unleash a jumper from anywhere around the arc, with range out past the NBA line. 

“I think he’s an underrated playmaker,” Westtown coach Seth Berger said. “Matt is a make-the-right play kind of kid, and he’s got the ability to put the ball on the floor and get to the basket, and be a really impactful passer. Because he’s such a good shooter, it allows him to get into the paint and make plays…I can really see him being a shoot-first, score-and-pass second type of player.”

Mayock estimated it had been “four or five years” since the last time the Mayock and Delaney families got to play hoops together, the last time he went up against the other Matt, plus older Delaney brothers Tim (Villanova) and Andrew (Adelphi), all 6-7 or taller.

“Since the last time I’ve played with him, he’s changed a lot, gotten a lot stronger and bigger, but I know that he’s very skilled and he can do a little bit of everything on the court,” Mayock said.

When it comes to his future teammate, Matt Delaney would likely say the same.


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