Matt Nelson is in his first season as the head coach of the Flyers after serving as the assistant coach for the previous three seasons. He is the 14th head coach in program history and 10th in the Division II era.
In his three seasons as an assistant he helped guide the program to a 59-26 record, three GLVC Tournament berths, an appearance in the 2020 GLVC Tournament championship game and two NCAA Tournament appearances. Nelson's player development work helped seven players earn All-GLVC accolades during his time including 2018-19 GLVC and D2CCA National Player of the Year Jessica Kelliher and 2020-21 GLVC Freshman of the Year Jenna Badali. He identified and recruited the 2020 class which included Badali and second team All-GLVC selection Kathryn Schmidt.
In his first season with the Flyers, Nelson assisted in securing a berth to the GLVC Tournament and an at-large berth to the NCAA Tournament. His player development work helped Jessica Kelliher attain a First Team All-GLVC and GLVC Player of the Year honors while Rachel Hinders and Tierney Lockett earned second team All-GLVC accolades and Gabby Green was a third team All-GLVC selection. Kelliher was also the D2CCA Midwest Region and National Player of the Year, the Google Cloud Academic All-America Team Member of the Year for Division II Women's Basketball and was the D2CCA Scholar Athlete of the Year.
He came to Lewis after spending the last two seasons at Aurora University as an assistant coach with the women's basketball program and the men's and women's golf programs. During his tenure with the Spartans he prepared scouting reports on opponents for coaches and players. Nelson identified and recruited the 2017 class which included Julie Galauner, who was the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference Freshman of the Year. He worked primarily with the post players.
Prior to his time at Aurora, Nelson spent two seasons at Dominican University as an assistant coach for the men's and women's programs. In 2015, he coached the D3Hoops Central Region Freshman of the Year for men's basketball.
Nelson began his collegiate coaching career as an assistant at Benedictine University where he was on the staff of former Flyer head coach Kristin Gillespie for two seasons. He devised practice plans with the coaching staff and broke down opponent game film for scouting purposes.
As a collegiate basketball players, Nelson enjoyed a four-year career at Ripon College, leading the Midwest Conference in three-point field goal percentage his junior season at 48 percent. He was named a captain his senior season and honored with the Jack Arnold Award for leadership and courage.
Nelson graduated from Ripon with his bachelor's degree in English with an emphasis in secondary education.
He resides in Warrenville, Ill., with his wife Brittany and sons Abel and Eliott.
