A sideline veteran with coaching experience at nearly every level, Assistant Coach Matt Klemin enters his 15th season as a member of the UC Davis women’s basketball coaching staff in 2025-26, focusing his efforts on skill development, working with the Aggies’ guards, opponent scouts, and helping coordinate the program’s recruiting efforts.
Klemin joined the UC Davis sidelines prior to the 2011-12 season, and has helped guide the program to perennial postseason success as the Aggies have extended their season with NCAA Tournament (2011 and 2019) or Women’s National Invitation Tournament berths (2008, 2010, 2012, 2017, and 2018) in seven of the school’s 13 Division I campaigns, while laying claim to each of the last four Big West Conference regular season titles and a league tournament crown in 2019.
Over the last seven years, UC Davis has won 134 games — including three seasons of 20-or-more wins and claiming 25 victories and the program’s second-ever berth in the NCAA Tournament in 2019, taking on second-seeded Stanford in the first round. Prior to that, the Aggies racked up 28 wins (a program Division I record and the second-highest single-season total in school history) and advanced to the “Elite Eight” of the WNIT — the furthest any Big West school has advanced in that tournament — in 2018, and made an appearance in the WNIT “Sweet 16” following a 25-win season in 2017.
In conference play, UC Davis has been the “queens of the court,” posting a 55-9 league record during its back-to-back-to-back-to-back title run and winning 10-or-more games in Big West action in each of the last five seasons.
With his assistance, guards Samantha Meggison (2011-12) and Cortney French (2012-13) earned All-Big West Conference honors in his first two seasons, while later helping Kelsey Harris rank among the nation’s top three-point shooters during her two seasons as an Aggie, eventually finishing No. 3 in the nation while setting school and conference records in numerous three-point categories in 2014-15.
Sydnee Fipps, a three-time All-Big West Conference first team selection who led the team in scoring for three consecutive seasons, finished her career as the No. 2 scorer in the program’s history with 1,636 points, and stands among the top 10 in seven other categories entering the 2018-19 season. She has played professionally overseas in Portugal and Australia, earning WSBL All-Star honors with the Lakeside Lightning in the latter.
Recent graduates Pele Gianotti, a three-time All-Big West selection, and Rachel Nagel, who earned second team honors as a senior, reached the 1,000-point milestone in 2017-18 and both finished among the top 20 in the history of the program in scoring as well as numerous other categories, while guard Kourtney Eaton set the program’s career record for assists — a mark that also ranked seventh in Big West history upon her graduation in 2019.
Gianotti embarked on a professional career after graduation, signing with a club in Germany, who Nagel returned to her hometown to coach her high school’s varsity team before undertaking graduate school.
Prior to the Aggies, Klemin spent five seasons as an assistant coach in Southern California, spending two years at Vanguard University in Costa Mesa, California, one season at Azusa Pacific, and two more campaigns at Cal Baptist University in Riverside, California.
A 2004 graduate of Cal Poly, Klemin also spent two seasons as an assistant coach and director of basketball operations for the Mustangs’ women’s team from 2004-06, helping them to the second round of the conference tournament in his second year.
As an undergraduate, Klemin began his coaching career as an assistant varsity coach and junior varsity head coach at San Luis Obispo HS, while also holding positions at the AAU and middle school levels, as well as an instructor at a number of summer camps.
Klemin earned his bachelor’s degree in graphic communications and added a master’s degree in education administration from Cal Poly a year later. He and his wife, Lindsay, were married in 2014, and the couple resides in Sacramento with their son, Wyatt, and daughter, Harper.
