There will be other quarters for Matharu and the Gators, but who could blame the senior point guard for her bubbly post-game enthusiasm? This one had been a long time coming.
March 27, 2022. Aliyah Matharu
That was the date Matharu last played in a real college basketball game. She was a junior at Texas when the team's season ended with a 59-50 loss to second-ranked Stanford in the NCAA West Region final at Spokane, Wash. After that, Matharu entered the transfer portal and eventually wound up at UF. Because it was her second transfer (after freshman and sophomore seasons at Mississippi State, she reunited with her former Bulldogs coach, Vic Schaefer, at Texas in 2021), NCAA rules required her to sit out the '22-23 athletic year.
So she practiced with the Gators and watched games from the bench all last season.
Her 584-day wait ended just past 6 p.m. Wednesday.
"She was super-excited," Gators coach Kelly Rae Finley said. "She's had her countdown going for a while now."
Matharu made it count against the Moccasins. The 5-foot-7 senior from Washington, D.C., finished with a game-high 20 points on 10-for-19 shooting from the floor. She also had six steals and three assists over 26 minutes, yet the bulk of her skills (the full menu, if you will) was hardly on display. She missed all four of 3-point attempts and all three of her free throws, but don't be too concerned on that front. Matharu isn't.
"I hadn't played in a year, so I had some rust to knock off," she said. "My free throws and 3-ball will fall. I'm not worried about that."
In 88 games over three seasons, Matharu shot 39.3 percent from deep, plus 67.6 percent from the free-throw line (with a career-best 76.5 her final seasons with the Bulldogs). Her career numbers show 9.8 points per game, but she led the Longhorns at 12.0 per game (and also shot 42.4 from the arc) to go with 3.7 rebounds despite coming off the bench for most of her 36 games in her lone season in the Lone Star State. She had a career-high scoring eruption of 27 points for UT in a win over Tennessee.
Point guard Aliyah Matharu (2) on the attack against Florida Southern.
With 859 career points, Matharu can put the ball in the basket, but since arriving at Florida in the spring of '22 she's been working – "Trying to be a sponge and soak it all in," she said – on all facets of her game. She's had plenty of time to do it, too.
"Aliyah is dynamic in a lot of ways," Finley said. "She plays both ends of the floor. Plays hard always and does a great job of setting the tone on the defensive end of the floor and has really worked hard to grow in her game management on the offensive end, as well." Alberte Rimdal
Her life the last year-and-half has been a lot of time in the gym, a lot of studying film with her coaches, a lot of bonding time with her new teammates ... but no crowds cheering her on.
"She was a still a voice, a leader's voice, on the sideline for us," junior guard Alberte Rimdal said. "She was very much a part of the team."
For those 19 months, Matharu had a lot of resources at her disposal. She just didn't have basketball games to look forward to. That's why Wednesday night was such an emotional and joyous release.
"It was tough. I'm an only child, so basketball has been the only thing outside of school and being with my family that I truly love," she said. "But just being able to know that I learned how to be a good teammate was important to me. That's something a lot of people don't have to go through. It doesn't matter if my shot is not falling because I'm going to be the first to stand up and root the rest of my team on. That's a big thing for me."
On this particular night, though, Matharu's teammates were rooting for her.
Smiling with her, too.
"She can do so much more than what she did tonight – yet tonight she played great," Rimdal said. "It was just amazing to see her back on the court. I love playing with her."
