Matt Ilodigwe joins Toowoomba Mountaineers for 2025 QSL season

A basketball social media star who has a Steph Curry-esque three-point shot has joined a regional Queensland basketball team. Details inside

New Toowoomba Mountaineers signing Matt Ilodigwe. Picture: Mattilodigwe/Instagram

The Toowoomba Mountaineers have signed basketball internet sensation Matt Ilodigwe for the 2025 QSL basketball season.

The dynamic point guard boasts more than 500,000 followers across his social media platforms and was excited for his new venture in the Garden City.

After expressing interest to play in Australia, he was bombarded with messages and revealed how he decided on the Mountaineers as his ideal destination.

“It just happened organically one of the younger guys on the Toowoomba teams hit me up and told me about the program so I reached out to Sean (Connelly, Mountaineers head coach), did some research and it looked like a pretty good program,” he said.

“My biggest thing I just wanted to have an opportunity, after talking to Sean it just seemed like the best fit.”

Ilodigwe declared a championship was the main goal and revealed the player he models his game off the most and how he can translate that to Toowoomba.

“Definitely Steph Curry, that’s what got me into shooting growing up,” he said.

“His decision making movement off the ball, coming off the screens on the ball and off the ball, just getting his players involved.

“After talking to Sean watching some of the games last year, just seeing the ball movement, the sets and everything, I can definitely see myself fitting in very easily playing with the guys.

“For me once I hit a few (threes), it’s over, once I get hot it just opens up everything so I am just excited to see how it plays out.”

Despite boasting more than half a million followers, Ilodigwe never set out to try and achieve internet fame, with the growth coming naturally as he documented his basketball journey.

“I started like four years ago, I was a junior in college and I just started posting randomly on Tiktok, didn’t have the vision for it to go viral or anything,” he said.

“I was just doing it for fun. It just started to grow as I started to share my basketball journey, kind of being relatable to young hoopers with big dreams.

“It just started to blow up and I just use it to inspire people and show that anything’s possible you don’t have to be a ranked player … through hard work and dedication you can do anything.”

Toowoomba Mountaineers coach Sean Connelly. Picture: Kevin Farmer

Mountaineers men’s coach Sean Connelly revealed the impact this new signing is set to have on the team.

“For us we’ve got good dynamic guards but what we’ve lacked is ball movement and the decision making process to make that happen and I think he’ll bring a lot of that to our group,” he said.

“He’s played five years of college, he’s quite tight with his handle so he can protect the ball but he is also not shy to let it go either and get it through hands.”

Connelly also welcomed a player with as wide a reach as Ilodigwe has, believing it could help both parties.

“Matt announced his signing through his socials and we got a bit of a hit through it through ours,” Connelly said.

“The following has grown quite a bit in the last seven days. His social media is obviously big and that’s not the reason he’s here, he’s here to play basketball and he’s focused on that.

“He just shares his journey through it and it will help both sides.”

Originally published as Matt Ilodigwe joins Toowoomba Mountaineers for 2025 QSL season