Former UW-Oshkosh men's basketball head coach Matt Lewis kneels on the sideline during a game (Courtesy: UW-Oshkosh)
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh men’s basketball will have a new leader next season.
Last Tuesday, the school announcing that Matt Lewis had resigned after 14 seasons with the Titans, eight of which he spent as the head coach.
“I mean I’ve been here for 14 years and when I recruited these guys, a lot of that was, ‘Hey, do you think you’re ever leaving?” Lewis said. “In all honesty, I never thought I would.”
The former men’s basketball assistant-turned-head coach chose to leave Oshkosh not for himself, but for his family.
“My wife is a rockstar. She has turned down a lot of jobs over the last 6-7 years for us to stay at Oshkosh,” Lewis said. “She got a job at Illinois Wesleyan this year. It’s a really good opportunity for her. It’s kind of heartbreaking but I think it’s time for her to get to run, cut lose and chase something.”
Lewis arrived at UWO back in 2012, serving as the top assistant under then head coach Pat Juckem.
“And then he [Juckem] left in 2018 when we were the national runner-up and I got to be the interim head coach that year,” Lewis said. “We returned basically everybody off that [2018] team and we won that next year. I became the truly, full time coach in the spring of 2019.”
Despite having the interim tag, Lewis helped the Titans to their first and still only NCAA Division III National Championship in his first season as the head coach.
Lewis led the Titans back to the NCAA Tournament three more times, including a trip to the Elite 8 in 2023.
A three-time WIAC coach of the year, Lewis leaves Oshkosh with an overall head coaching record of 141-62.
“I feel like I came here as a 25-year-old kid and didn’t exactly know what to do with life other than I like basketball. I feel like I grew up with these people that were very passionate about our program and what we were doing,” Lewis said. “It’s been really cool to share our run, our ride with this area. I’m just incredibly thankful for everything.”
Lewis doesn’t have a new job lined up yet but wants to remain in basketball.
“I was never a great player. I always envisioned I was going to be a coach anyways,” Lewis said. “Now, I’ll just have to figure out another way to be involved.”
Some of Lewis’ hardest goodbyes were to the players he recruited. He knows that because of them, the future is bright for UW-Oshkosh men’s basketball.
“There’s a special group of young men sitting in the locker room at Oshkosh,” Lewis said. “Whoever is the next head coach is going to walk into a group that’s a a truly high character, great teammate group that will be a lot of fun to coach.”
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