Maine Sports Hall of Famer, Matt Hancock, Stands Behind Noah Basketball
For Matt Hancock there's no other place he'd rather shoot a basketball than in a renovated Maine dairy barn. Inside this beautiful structure is a collegiate-level half court complete with a stunning raised panel hardwood floor with foam rubber underneath. The barn features three glass backboards and is wired for sound. There's also a Noah Instant on the wall.
A basketball player can search his whole life for such a place and never find it. Luckily for Hancock, such a place is on his property.
"It's a shooting Mecca," Hancock said of his farm in the Sebago Lake region of Maine. "It's one of the great places to shoot in the world."
And shooting is something Hancock knows how to do although he would tell you that he's not a shooter or scorer but someone who just hated to lose.
Hancock is one of the most prolific scorers in NCAA Division III college basketball history. He totaled 2,678 points between 1987-90 at Colby College, located in Waterville, Maine. He averaged 26.3 points per game during his four collegiate years.
He still holds the NCAA Division III record for free throw attempts with 928 and converted with 792, which is good for an 85.3 percentage.
The 6-foot-3 guard didn't lose much either. He led Lake Region High School (Maine) to the 1985 Class B state championship and then helped Colby College amass an 80-24 record that included four appearances in the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) postseason tournament. During his senior season in 1989-90, Hancock earned the NCAA Division III Player of the Year award after leading the Mules to a school-record 26-1 record and an ECAC title.
To recognize and highlight his basketball accomplishments, Hancock was inducted into the Maine Sports Hall of Fame on May 20.
"It was a wonderful honor," Hancock said.
Hancock said he was not very fast and not the most athletic. But he was a grinder and never allowed himself to fail. "I think of myself as one of the all-time greatest in terms of never giving in," he told a local newspaper.
So this self-made basketball star, who at 46 still plays the game with the same passion and relentlessness as he did in his youth, found himself very cynical as he entered Lake Region High School gym to check out this thing called Noah.
"I vividly remember walking in as skeptical as you can be," Hancock said. "I thought to myself ‘come on, how can this thing work?' Technology can't make you a better player. I entered the gym as a snooty self-made shooter."
Hancock heard about the clinic when a flyer was brought home by one of his three daughters announcing a Noah free clinic hosted by company representative Kevin Powers.
"I didn't go online and check out Noah," Hancock said. "I was sure it didn't work."
Then as Powers demonstrated Noah and its potential to improve shooting, Hancock felt a chill tingle his spine—"of course, it works" were the words bouncing in his head.
"I've always been a front rim shooter," Hancock said. "Immediately after Kevin said, ‘you should shoot the ball deep in the basket because the basket is wider,' it made immediate sense. The basket is wider the deeper you shoot it. It was a no-brainer. I went from ‘no way' to ‘I want one' in five minutes."
As Hancock spoke about Noah, the passion was dripping from his words. It was easy to see how he became a great player with such love for the game.
"Of course Noah works," Hancock continued. "Of course the science works. Shot-after-shot feedback is invaluable. There's nothing like it out there. Noah and its instant and cerebral feedback works in a place in the player's mind that goes beyond what a great shooting coach can teach. You relate different from Noah's communication compared to a coach's. "It's really funny thinking now how skeptical I was. I was a knucklehead."
Hancock purchased a system for his barn and chose the wall-mounted Noah Instant. He hopped on it the day Noah was installed and discovered his shot registered between 43-46 degrees. He earned Expert II level right away.
"I adjusted my shot to shoot deeper in the basket and made 87 straight jumpers," Hancock said. "In my life, I've shot millions of basketballs without instant feedback. I used Noah and made an adjustment in 10 minutes that fixed my shooting dramatically. At age 46, I now shoot correctly."
He took his new stroke to the local men's league and pickup games. Not surprisingly, he drained shot after shot and had teammates and opponents asking "holy cow, what have you been doing?"
Recently, Hancock and his mother watched one of his daughters shoot baskets in the barn. They were relaxing in the patio area on the second floor. Noah's voice echoed throughout the barn with the instant feedback. They wondered if Hancock had Noah back in the day, how many more shots could he have made?
"We just laughed because it probably would have been a lot," Hancock said.
Now Hancock is passing the game to his daughters—Sarah, 10th grade, Cece, 9th grade and Shauna, 4th grade. All three are terrific players and have their father's competitive spirit.
"There are very few ways to have a competitive advantage for the top players," Hancock said. "Everyone is eating right, everyone is in shape, everyone is working on ball handing and rebounding. But with Noah, there is an advantage." Hancock shoots with Noah in his barn two to three times a week and he has additionally come to employ the instantaneous feedback in coaching sessions with his daughters and other players in their community.
"The game of basketball still has real meaning in my life and for whatever reason I still have a real desire to improve a craft I've been working on for over 40 years," Hancock said.