Mario Matasovic
Western Michigan University freshman Mario Matasovic made his first visit to the United States as a member of the Croatian National Team participating in the Adidas Nations Global Experience in Los Angeles in 2011, which was a great honor considering he started playing the game just two years earlier.
“One of my friends talked me into playing basketball in high school because I was so tall,” said Matasovic, a 6’ 8” forward, who was raised in Slovanski Brod, Croatia. “I was the best player and I just kept going and here I am now. WMU has 25,000 students and just 15 to 16 guys get to represent the University as a basketball team. It’s really nice to know that you have a chance to do that.”
He arrived at WMU just in time to play with a team that won the 2014 Mid-American Conference Tournament title with a 98-77 victory over the Toledo Rockets in early March. That win earned the Broncos a berth in the annual NCAA Tournament, the team’s first opportunity since the 2003-04 season to play in what is commonly called the “March Madness” tournament. The Broncos fell in its first game of the tournament 77-53 to 11th ranked Syracuse, finishing the season with a 23-10 record, the third-highest single season wins total in program history.
Matasovic made his collegiate debut against New Mexico State in November and continued to earn more playing time as the season progressed. He scored a collegiate career-high five points against Central Michigan University in February. Now that the season has ended for this year, Matasovic can turn to what he says is his main focus of enrolling at WMU—earning a degree in electrical engineering. “Right now I’m concentrating on these four years and doing the best that I can here at Western,” he said. His first chance to play on an American team came when he was recruited in October 212 by St. John’s Military NW Military Academy in Wisconsin, where Matasovic was a stand-out player, scoring 13 points in a 71-60 win over Notre Dame Prep (Massachusetts) at the 2013 National Prep School Invitational. “They chose me—I got an email saying that I got a scholarship and it was my only chance to come to the U.S., so I grabbed it,” he said.
WMU also chose Matasovic after Bronco Coach Steve Hawkins spotted Matasovic playing in a high school-level tournament. Matasovic said that he had received offers from other colleges, but in the end, Western seemed like the right fit. By the time he arrived on campus, Matasovic had a good command of the English language and was ready to excel in the classroom, as well as on the court. And, he was pleasantly surprised to learn that taking college courses at WMU would not be quite as rigorous as it would have been for him if he had studied in Croatia.
“In Croatia, college is an all-day responsibility," he said. “Students take 10 classes per semester and school is much harder. In U.S. colleges, you only have to take four or five classes per semester and you have the rest of the day to do whatever you want, which in my case is to play basketball.”
Back in Croatia, Matasovic attended a technical high school, so he already had four years of experience in electrical engineering before enrolling at WMU. That has made his academic work a bit easier than it might have been, but he says it is still very challenging to manage your time well when you are a student athlete. “It’s not easy, especially during the season,” he said. “Sometimes we play three times a week. Personally I try to do as much work as I can over the weekend or on the bus on the road. The main thing is to have good time management skills so you can do all of your course work on time.”
Thanks to technology, Matasovic rarely feels homesick; he and his family communicate regularly via Skype calls. He is very grateful to his parents, who he said have given him unconditional support to achieve his goal of playing basketball in
America in college. “When I was graduating at my high school back home, it was impossible to go to a Croatian college and play basketball,” he said. “A friend connected me to some U.S. coaches, which helped me find opportunities. At first my parents didn’t want me to study in the U.S., but after a while they realized how the system (collegiate athletics) works over ere and they supported me.”
Playing basketball for the Croatian National Team and the A-1 Djuro Djakovic team, as well as for the military academy and WMU has also provided Matasovic with many opportunities to travel. With the Bronco team alone he has visited New
York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Hawaii. “I like traveling, and playing basketball has given me the chance to travel all over the world,” he said. “You can meet a bunch of new people and make good connections.”
For now, Matasovic is enjoying life in Kalamazoo. He is currently staying in WMU’s Ernest/Burnham residence hall, which is home to many Bronco athletes. He plans to move to an apartment near campus for his sophomore year, and to continue his discovery of Kalamazoo and other areas of the Midwest. “One of the main reasons I like Kalamazoo is its location,” he said. “The city is centrally located right between Detroit and Chicago.”