Matt Ashcroft’s success formula has Eagles thinking, playing like champs
Editor’s note: This story was originally published last month, before the state of the District 3 Tournament.
Matt Ashcroft’s sharp basketball mind has been shaped by many he’s come across during nearly three decades around the game: His coaches at Central Catholic and Albright College, Snip Esterly and Rick Ferry, respectively; his grandfathers, Mel McQuaite and Allen “Doc” Ashcroft, successful youth coaches; and rival coaches, who he’s always hitting up for advice or borrowing plays from.
Few have affected the Exeter coach’s approach more than his wife Rebecca, a special education teacher at Green Valley Elementary.
Ashcroft keeps a crumpled piece of paper in his left hand as he paces back and forth along the sidelines; it’s filled with set plays, out of bounds plays, notes on that night’s opponent, statistical breakdowns.
Nowhere does it include the 3-to-1 formula that has been so vital to his and Exeter’s success.
| Berks | Coach of the Year | |
| 2023 | Matt Ashcroft | Exeter |
| 2022 | Matt Flowers | Muhlenberg |
| 2021 | Matt Coldren | Wilson |
| 2020 | Matt Coldren | Wilson |
| 2019 | Ted Snyder | Kutztown |
| 2018 | Snip Esterly | Berks Catholic |
| 2017 | Dan Haughney | Gov. Mifflin |
| 2016 | Taylor Grim | Schuylkill Valley |
| 2015 | Snip Esterly | Berks Catholic |
| 2014 | Matt Coldren | Wilson |
Three-to-one: That’s the ratio of positive thoughts to criticism Ashcroft doles out to his players.
It seems to be a winning formula: The Eagles claimed their first division title in 39 years this season and reached the Berks Conference championship game for the first time since 1974.
The power of positive thinking has had a lot to do with that, and with the Eagles’ rapid turnaround: They were 3-14 two years ago and took more losses than wins a year ago. Now they’re enjoying their first 20-win season since 1984.
The 34-year-old Ashcroft is a basketball savant: He can remember plays and sequences and shots from 15 years ago as though they happened at yesterday’s practice.
He was an overachiever as a player, setting 3-point shooting records and winning a PIAA championship in 2007 and scoring 1,000 points and leading the Lions to a Middle Atlantic Conference championship in 2010.
He has continued to evolve and soon came to realize the words he uses during practices and in the locker room are just as important, if not more so, than the X’s and O’s he scribbles on his whiteboard during timeouts.
Ashcroft is always upbeat when talking about the game, even under the gravest of circumstances; there’s nothing, he reminds his players, they can’t achieve if they stay together and work at it.
“My wife always says that for every one piece of constructive criticism you need (to say) three uplifting things,” Ashcroft said of his 3-to-1 success formula. “I’ve tried to live by that as much as possible. I do better some days than others. Sometimes it’s a one-to-one ratio because I’m mad and I’m fired up.”
Oh, he’s passionate about basketball. Anyone who saw him prowl the sidelines at Santander Arena during the Berks Conference championship game could see that. He was on tilt at the end as a big lead slipped away and the Red Knights won 70-63; he wanted that win more than anything.
The way his guys executed in that game shows the impact he’s had on them, both physically and mentally; every guy that stepped on the court that night had no doubt they could knock off one of the top teams in the state.
It was no surprise to see Ashcroft’s peers name him Coach of the Year two days later.
That award was earned as much during the spring and summer months, when he’s constantly in the gym with his guys, or around midnight following games, when he’s up texting video to his assistant coaches.
Ashcroft, always a student of the game, continues to add to his basketball catalogue. He’s constantly adding plays and notes to that crumpled piece of paper.
Colin Naugle, a teammate since their grade school years with the St. Catherine CYO team, saw that immediately when he joined the Exeter staff in 2019, Ashcroft’s first.
“His attention to detail was college-level,” said Naugle. “He gets the players to understand what they’re doing and how it impacts our game.”
“He has our kids so prepared, because of how hard he works,” said Exeter athletic director Tom Legath, who often wakes up to a string of Ashcroft emails sent early in the a.m. hours.
Ashcroft won’t sleep until he’s completely prepared for the next day’s task.
The effect of his positive outlook was on full display last year at this time when the Eagles limped into the post season.
They were on a losing streak and without one of their best players, Joey Schlaffer, the Penn State tight end recruit who missed the final third of the season with an injury.
No matter.
Ashcroft coaxed his guys through the district bracket and into the PIAA Tournament, Exeter’s first state berth this millennium.
His 3-to-1 formula has done wonders for point guard Zyion Paschall, who didn’t believe enough in himself to shoot the ball as a junior.
Ashcroft built him up throughout the offseason. Paschall scored a career-high 20 points in the Berks title game and was named to the All-Berks team earlier this week.
“He gave me confidence to shoot the ball and just play my game,” said Paschall, one of the most improved players in the league.
As a player Ashcroft never thought about coaching. Then, a year after graduating from Albright, he realized there was a void in his life because he had disconnected from the game. He hooked up as a volunteer assistant at Archbishop Carroll, near his home at the time in Manayunk.
He returned to the Reading area a few years later and joined Esterly’s staff at Berks Catholic for four seasons before applying for the job at Exeter.
Legath said two minutes into Ashcroft’s interview he knew he had found his guy.
“I saw the hunger, the passion for the game, the desire to want to succeed,” Legath said.
When one of Exeter’s top players, Reece Garvin, injured his ankle last week and was lost indefinitely, Ashcroft went into his Norman Vincent Peale routine, sprinkling the power of positive thinking around his locker room.
His players believe they can advance through the District 3 Class 5A Tournament even with their No. 2 scorer and rebounder in a walking boot.
“Thursday’s going to be tough,” Ashcroft said of a quarterfinal against Mid-Penn Keystone champion Milton Hershey. “If we stay together and keep playing Exeter basketball, we like our chances.”