Ben Simmons, Patty Mills, Joe Ingles, Dante Exum, Aron Baynes – Australians are killing it in the NBA and Orange’s Matt Gray will take his next step toward joining that list this weekend, he flies out to link with Drake University next week after his Bathurst Goldminers swansong on Saturday night.
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Well, the NBA is certainly his end goal anyway, but the 202 centimetre, 18-year-old forward is fully aware that’s a long, long way down the track.
For now he’s focused on settling in at Drake, trying to impress the college’s brand-new coaching staff during summer training and then, hopefully, earning plenty of minutes in the Bulldogs’ National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division 1 Missouri Valley Conference campaign.
“It’s come up really quickly.. I’m really excited but a little bit nervous too,” Gray said.
“I’ve got a few days to settle in and then summer school starts. There’s two months worth of classes and team training there, we could go team-based stuff or individual but being a new group, it’s all team stuff for us.
“I come back to Australia for a little bit in August and then I’ll go back for the season.”
He also admitted to being somewhat relieved to still have an opportunity with Drake too, after Bulldogs’ head coach Niko Medved and his assistants left the program to take up a post at Colorado State.
Gray was one of seven freshman Medved had recruited to Drake, the Orange Eagles product is now the only first-year on the roster.
“The new coach, Darian DeVries, was an assistant at Creighton for 17 years was happy for me to stay in the program.
“We considered looking around, but wanted to wait and see who the new coach would be and decided Drake was still the best fit. Noah (Thomas), who’s an Aussie as well, was staying and that was a big part of the decision for me to stay too.
“There’s a more even spread across years now with the new group, and that just means I’ll have to work harder.”
Gray’s assuming a lot of that hard work in the pre-season will be adding weight to his already-hulking frame, before the Bulldogs try to improve on their fourth finish in the conference come the season-proper.
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Drake was also ranked 164th in the country.
“I think they’ll try and bulk me up a bit,” he laughed.
“Outside that it’s just preparing for the season. Starting spots are hard to come by as a freshman so I’ll just work hard and hopefully pick up some minutes.
“The main goal will be to win the conference and then there’s the (NCAA) tournament (commonly known as March Madness) from there, but winning will be tough because Loyola Chicago are in our conference and they made the final four this year.”
But, of course, before he goes he has one more job to do with his beloved Goldminers when they host the Moss Vale Magic at Bathurst Indoor Sports Stadium on Saturday night.
“It’s good to be able to play that last game at home, I’m really looking forward to it,” he said.
Gray’s been in unbelievable Waratah League Men’s Division Two form so far this season too, he’s the league’s leading scorer and is averaging an incredible 35.4 points per game.
Gray dropped 38 the last time his Goldminers played the Magic, way back in round four, leading the Bathurst outfit to a 104-79 win.
He’s confident his side can do a job on Moss Vale again this weekend, and “has complete faith” the Goldminers will go and qualify for the play-offs without him.
“We’ve beaten them once this year already, hopefully we can repeat at home,” he said.
“We’ve had a couple of losses but we’ve been on a bit of a roll recently and I’m sure the boys will continue that once I’m gone, I’ve got complete faith they’ll go on and make the finals.
“I’d like to help the side to another win this weekend, go out on a victory and help set the side up a bit more for the back half of the season.”
The Goldminers face the Magic from 6pm on Saturday night, Gray flies out next Wednesday.