Monaco’s young guard has stepped up over the last two months
Coach Spanoulis pleased with Matthew Strazel's improvements
Article
3 Mins read
Regular Season
Round 23 of 34
Group Regular Season
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AS Monaco was missing two of its top scorers for its important showdown with Virtus Segafredo Bologna. Luckily, the club’s young guard Matthew Strazel had another big performance - and earned the praise of head coach Vassilis Spanoulis.
Monaco came up with a strong game in taking an 80-86 road win over in-form Virtus to snap a three-game losing streak despite not having the services of Elie Okobo and Jordan Loyd.
While Mike James scored a season-high 24 points, Strazel chipped in 14 points, 3 assists and 2 steals in more than 32 minutes on the court. The 22-year-old biggest’s score was a clutch three-point play to give Monaco a 74-78 lead with 1:51 minutes left in the game.
“Matthew is playing really, really high level basketball. I talk with him a lot and the most important thing is to have great mentality, attitude and work hard every day and listen. Young generations have to listen. Matthew is listening, he’s competing hard, he’s practicing. And I am very happy about him and how he is helping the team get wins,” Spanoulis said of Strazel, who is spending his third season with Monaco after coming over from LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne in 2022.
“He has to keep going. He is very young. He has a lot of room for improvement. But I am very very proud of him and the way he takes information and the way he is improving and getting more mature in his game.”
Strazel’s performance was needed against Virtus as Monaco was playing without Okobo and Loyd. Okoko is averaging 12.9 points and 3.9 assists and Loyd has tallied 10.2 points and 2.2 assists this season.
Game Videos
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Papagiannis at both ends! Motorola Magic Moment
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- 00:58
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- 01:45
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Vassilis Spanoulis: 'We have patience'
“We had two people out tonight - Jordan and Elie - and that was big, stepping up and winning on the road without two of our bigger players. I am just really happy we could get a road win, especially after last week,” said James, referring to Monaco losing both games from the double-rounder.
Strazel has stepped up in the last two months. In his last five EuroLeague games, the Frenchman is averaging 14.2 points for a season average of 8.5 points. This was the first game since Round 15 that he didn’t make at least 1 three-pointer and he is shooting 44.9% percent from long range on the season.
Strazel came into the season after a great 2024 summer in which he helped the French national team win silver at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. Despite being only 22 years old, Strazel already has appeared in 131 EuroLeague games, playing in 16 games in his rookie season in 2019-20 for ASVEL.
So, it really shouldn’t be a surprise that Strazel is there to step up when Monaco is missing something.