Matt Howard

Matt Howard ( born January 23, 1989 in Connersville, Indiana ) is an American professional basketball player. After studying in his native country was Howard professional in Europe, where he played among others in the German Basketball Bundesliga for the first division Württemberg, EnBW Ludwigsburg and ratiopharm ulm. For the latter team he has been active since the Basketball Bundesliga 2013/14.

Career

College years (2007 to 2011)

Howard went in 2007 to study at Butler University in Indianapolis, the capital of his native U.S. state. There he played for the college team Bulldogs in the Horizon League NCAA. From the beginning, he was a valuable support for the team, was selected as the " Freshman " "Newcomer of the Year " of the Horizon League and won a year later as " Conference Player of the Year." The Bulldogs won in the four years with Howard three times the championship tournament of the Horizon League, in 2009 only one lost the final against the Vikings of Cleveland State University. In the last two title wins the Bulldogs in 2010 and 2011, Howard was named Most Valuable Player of the championship tournament. In all of his four seasons, the Bulldogs reached the qualifying for the NCAA national finals. After the Bulldogs had twice retired early, they reached in 2010 and 2011, the final match of the final tournament, although they were not set in the regional groups of the finals in the top four teams. In 2010 she lost the final match at the " Final Four " tournament against the renowned Duke University Blue Devils with two points difference and 2011 against the Huskies of the University of Connecticut after half-time lead with 41:53.

Howard was able to excel in his college career by his fighting spirit on the field, in obtaining rebounds and particularly also developed a long-range throw from behind the three point line. Initially he not leave litter at such a distance in his first NCAA season, he scored in his senior year of just four attempts per game 40 % of these throws, which is considered a good rate for such kind of throws. He also distinguished himself by nerves in game-winning throws. Twice got Howard in 2010 and 2011, the " Elite 88 Award" (later Elite 89 Award) of Division I awarded to the player who could produce the best academic record at the highest athletic level of the NCAA. Howard, who grew up with nine siblings, renounced during his college time not to be age-related rusted bicycle and its used sport shoes, though he were half a dozen new shoes available, continued to exert excessive importance to his other appearance and had a particular weakness for word games, which made him as a personality in addition to his outstanding athletic and academic achievement has become a popular topic of media reporting.

Europe ( since 2011 )

After Howard had not been selected by a team in the most highly endowed professional league NBA despite his achievements in the NBA Draft in 2011, he started a professional career in Europe the Greek giants Olympiakos Piraeus. Here he could not prevail, and left the team in February 2012, before the team later addition to the Greek championship with the ULEB Euro League 2011/12 won the supreme title of European club basketball. For the rest of the season, he joined the relegation-threatened Bundesliga from Ludwigsburg in the National Basketball League in 2011/12 to. After the league with this team Howard signed for the following season a contract with Chorale Basket from Roanne in the French LNB Pro A. Under the previously active in Germany coach Luka Pavićević lost the team as a fifth of the main round in the play- offs to the Cup in the first round against defending champion Élan Chalon. Then Howard got a contract with the local German first division ratiopharm for the Basketball Bundesliga 2013/14 in Ulm.