Attitude, Offseason Work the Key To Matthew Hurt's Improvement

Duke sophomore has doubled his scoring and rebounding averages

Matthew Hurt added 20 pounds of muscle while he was home during the pandemic. He’s also taking on a more aggressive role this season. Both of those factors have contributed to his improvement in rebounding. Hurt is averaging 8.0 boards per game, more than double his 3.8 average last year.

“I think it was a little bit of both,” he said. “I’ve added some muscle since last year and also my mindset is being more aggressive and being tougher to go in on rebounds, to go up with two hands and try to get all the rebounds that I can. Especially as a team, just getting more rebounds. I think having the right mindset going into every game, trying to go up with two hands and just trying to get a body on everyone on every possession.”

Hurt has also doubled his scoring output, from 9.7 ppg to 19.2, thanks in part to a fadeaway jump shot he developed while on lockdown.

“I think during quarantine,” he said. “I was blessed to be able to get into a gym and I just worked on a lot of things. I think the first day I tried to start doing the fadeaway, it just felt really comfortable. Ever since then, I really started doing it every day – just get a lot of touch shots and a lot of those every single day during the season.”

As a sophomore on a team with six freshmen, Hurt is also taking on a leadership role.

“We have four upperclassmen with J-Gold (Jordan Goldwire), Joey (Baker), me and Wendell (Moore Jr.), and then also Mike Buckmire, Michael Savarino and Keenan Worthington, so we have seven actually,” he said. “I think all of us bring different traits. Some lead by example, some lead by voice, but for me personally, I just try to have a voice but also lead by example. Just trying to do a mixture of both, it really can help the younger guys get better.”