By Hawk Fanatic

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Matt Gatens is heading back to Auburn to continue his coaching career, but in a somewhat different role.

The former Iowa assistant coach, and former Hawkeye player from Iowa City, has according to multiple sources accepted a position as General Manager under Auburn men’s basketball coach Bruce Pearl.

Gatens previously served as a graduate assistant coach under Pearl at Auburn for the 2017-18 season.

The relationship between Matt Gatens and Bruce Pearl goes all the way back to when Gatens was born on June 13, 1989 in Iowa City.

Pearl was an Iowa assistant coach under Tom Davis at the time. Pearl was also close with the Gatens family and one of the first people to visit Matt Gatens in the hospital after Matt was born.

Matt Gatens would go on to become a star player for Iowa, making second-team All-Big Ten as a senior in 2012.

In his previous job at Auburn, Gatens assisted in travel, development, scouting, video and camps for the Southeastern Conference champions. Gatens also aided in the development of the team’s guards, including All-SEC selections Bryce Brown and Jared Harper.

Auburn is coming off a record-breaking season in which it finished as the NCAA runner-up to Florida, and with a 32-6 record.

Pearl will be entering his 12th season as the Auburn head coach. He has a 706-268 overall record, including 244-123 at Auburn.  Pearl also has led Auburn to seven  NCAA Tournament appearances over the past eight season, the one exception being the 2019-20 season when all postseason play was cancelled due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 global pandemic.

The role of general manager is on the rise in college athletics, especially in football and men’s basketball, as schools adjust to the new landscape, which has changed dramatically due to the impact of NIL and the transfer portal.

Matt Gatens coached for four seasons at Drake, helping the Bulldogs to four straight 20-win seasons and to the 2019 Missouri Valley Conference regular-season title.

The Iowa City native then returned home in 2022 to work as an assistant coach under Fran McCaffery.

But then Fran McCaffery was fired as the Iowa head coach in mid-March after 15 seasons and replaced by former Drake head coach Ben McCollum.

There was speculation that Matt Gatens would be retained by McCollum due partly to Gatens’s long-standing connections to the Iowa program.

But when that didn’t happen, Matt Gatens was without a job until Pearl made an offer he couldn’t refuse.

Matt Gatens played for Iowa from 2008 to 2012 and was a four-year starter.

He played his first two seasons at Iowa under Todd Lickliter and his final two seasons under Fran McCaffery.

Gatens helped to lay the foundation under Fran McCaffery, leading Iowa to the National Invitation Tournament as a 6-foot-5 senior guard in 2012, which was McCaffery’s second season.

Following his Hawkeye career, Gatens played professionally in France, Spain, Turkey and Ukraine. He returned to the United States to play for the Iowa Energy in the NBA Development League, but he suffered a torn ACL just five quarters into the 2016-17 season, ending his playing career.

Gatens was named Iowa’s ‘Mr. Basketball’ and the state’s Gatorade Player of the Year as a senior at Iowa City High School. He led his squad to a 4A state title as a senior in 2008 and holds the City High record for career scoring.

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