BYU wins big with Purdue grad-transfer Matt Haarms
Arguably the top graduate-transfer available this spring, a decision has come from Matt Haarms. After a standout three seasons spent at Purdue, Haarms has settled on completing his college career at BYU beginning in the fall.
“My two big reasons were for one, I wanted an opportunity to be a piece of a team and two, I wanted a great fit with the coaching staff that was going to develop me,” Haarms said. “As I got to know them more, they were some great conversations and they really dug into the numbers and the advanced stats and I just love stuff like that.”
The 7-foot-3 center chose BYU over Kentucky and Texas Tech. The Netherlands native has started 40 games throughout his college career. He has averaged at least two blocks per game in each season. This past year, he averaged 8.6 points and 4.6 rebounds, while making 52-percent of his shots from the floor.
“They really broke out onto the map on the national scene last season and I truly believe that I can turn them into a national powerhouse,” Haarms went on to say. “We just had a great connection from the start. I wanted to make sure that I had a great connection with the head coach since I was only going to be there for a year and Coach (Mark) Pope was excellent in that way. He would always call me with and say that he wanted three minutes to talk and we would go on for another 45-minutes. He was always excited about having the ability to coach me and I knew that he was going to work hard for me and I was going to be able to work hard for him.
Haarms is expected to be the starting 5-man for BYU next season. Finishing 318th in blocked shots last season as a team, Haarms actually had just ten less blocks than the entire Cougars’ roster had last year. He brings with him over 200 blocks for his career to Provo.
Set to lose practically all of its production from last year’s NCAA Tournament team due to graduations including Yoeli Childs, Haarms will see his greatest usage on the offensive end potentially become the face of its program during his final year in college ball.