Matt MacKenzie puts an emphasis on trust, and some area high school basketball players are putting their trust in him as another Maine tournament season gets underway.
MacKenzie, who played college basketball at Husson University, is the longtime player development coach for brothers Cooper and Ace Flagg. He owns Results Basketball and Eastern Maine Sports Academy in Veazie, where he trains athletes with an emphasis on developing both physical and mental basketball skills.
Some high school players and teams have been working at the facility to hone those skills heading into tourney time.
When asked about Cooper and Ace and whether up-and-coming athletes he works with are motivated by their achievements, MacKenzie said the Flaggs provide a good model because of how they approach their work in the offseason and off the court.
“I think that when young athletes can walk in here and see Cooper and Ace going through in a full sweat in the summertime four, five days a week, they’re just a great model for what treating your body and treating yourself like a pro needs to look like,” he said. “It certainly helps, it helps having players like that in my corner to use as an example when talking about, this is how you need to prepare.”
He also pointed to other players that he’s been working with for years, like Bangor native Landon Clark, who will be playing college basketball at Princeton University.
MacKenzie said that several high school teams, including the Hampden girls, Madawaska boys, Maranacook girls, Old Town boys, Wisdom girls and Fort Kent boys, have been or will be using his facility’s 94-foot court to help prepare for the tournament atmosphere.
Teams playing at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor during the tourney will often reach out to get in extra practices or walk throughs since MacKenzie’s facility has the 94-foot, NBA-sized court, he said. That’s the same length as the Cross Center’s and 10 feet longer than a typical high school court.
The Eastern Maine Sports Academy’s portable baskets also help teams and players prepare for depth perception differences that come with playing in arenas compared with regular high school gyms, which often have fixed baskets attached to a wall or ceiling. The portable baskets provide a similar feel to what players will be seeing in the tournament, he said.
MacKenzie also works individually with players to further develop their games, including ahead of the tournament, and holds basketball clinics for younger kids, including one this time of year as families travel to Bangor for games.
“A lot of times, players will come in and they’ll want to touch on little detailed areas just as they prepare for the tournament games,” MacKenzie said. “We’ll have some of these guys and girls come in, and whether it’s getting extra shots up, just stretching out, fine tuning little areas just to prepare for their next game, they use us as a resource to be able to kind of be like an extra set of eyes and ears as they get ready for those next matchups.”
MacKenzie has been working with Brewer freshman Oli Higgins and Mattanawcook junior Addison Cyr, who recently passed the 1,000-point mark for the Lincoln-based school.
A critical part of working with athletes also includes building good relationships with their team coaches, MacKenzie said.
“I try to have a good relationship with all the coaches that oversee the players that I work with,” he said. “That way I’m really reinforcing the things that they’re asking, the expectations they have of their players, versus working against them.”
MacKenzie is in frequent contact with Carl Parker, who coaches Higgins on the Brewer team.
“I talk to Coach Parker almost every single day,” MacKenzie said. “And a lot of the players that we work with, I’ll have check-ins with their coaches just to see where they’re at and what they expect from their athlete, that way we’re all aligned.”
Parker called MacKenzie “great as a skill development guy” and said he can work on the “little nuances of the game” that a team coach might not be able to cover with individual players during a practice. MacKenzie previously coached the Bangor middle school team when Parked coached at the high school, and Parker said they have a collaborative relationship.
“He’s done a great job with him,” Parker said about MacKenzie working with Higgins. “When there’s communication, and everybody’s looking for the best interests of that player, and the player has the skill that Oli has, I just think it works out very well.”
“And Oli trusts him,” Parker added.
MacKenzie’s approach to relationship building similarly applies to the college level, when he’s working with people such as Jon Scheyer, Cooper Flagg’s coach at Duke University, who MacKenzie said he speaks with weekly.
“We’re talking about what he expects for Cooper, and he bounces ideas off of me, and I bounce ideas off of him,” MacKenzie said. “And I feel like that’s the only way to make it really work without anybody feeling like they’re doing a disservice to the athlete or getting protective over the athlete.”
Another player who has worked with MacKenzie, former Orono standout Pierce Walston, recently committed to play at Husson. MacKenzie said he’s worked with UMaine sophomore guard Emmie Streams since the 6th grade.
“A lot of really good success stories, and it allows me to kind of share those with some of the up-and-commers who have these dreams to play at a high level and go on and play in college,” MacKenzie said.
These success stories have allowed him to have a blueprint to demonstrate to athletes what works, and what can help them become more complete players, he said.
“It shows athletes that the process that we’re putting in place is not an accident. We’ve been able to repeat it with several very successful players,” MacKenzie said. “It doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a lot of sacrifice.”
