Our Coaches

Matt Flinn

Executive Director/Coach

Matt has 10+ years of youth coaching experience in various sports. He is the former director of the Woodinville Select Basketball program, coached in the select program for 5 years, and coached NYBA basketball for 2 years. As the director of Woodinville Select, he implemented a rigorous spring and summer offseason program that was the inspiration for Pivot Basketball Training.

Matt played three years of high school varsity basketball for Brown County High School (Indiana), where he was an all-league and all-state selection. He then played four years at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, GA. While at Oglethorpe, he was a team captain his junior and senior years, and was the recipient of the "Stormiest Petrel Award".

Matt lives in Woodinville with his wife, Amy, and their three boys, Drew, Luke, and Sam. In addition to coaching basketball, Matt coaches for the Woodinville Lacrosse and Woodinville Little League programs.

Taylor Banks

Coach

Taylor has coaching experience at both the youth and high school levels. He has coached for 5 years in the Woodinville Select Basketball program (2008-2012, 2019) with teams placing 2nd and 3rd in the ETL Gold Division. In 2019-2020 he led the 7th grade team to their first winning season in 4 years, culminating in an ETL Silver Division Championship.

Taylor spent 3 years at Liberty High School as the C-team head coach (2013), JV head coach (2014), and head Varsity assistant (2015). In addition to his coaching duties, he served as the head of Varsity Scouting developing scouting reports and film for all opponents. In 2015 under Head Coach Omar Parker, Liberty High School Varsity Basketball made its first appearance in school history in the Regional (placing 2nd) and State Tournament.

Taylor played high school basketball at Woodinville High, where he was a 2-year starting guard, and a 3-year-letter winner. As a senior, he earned team captain and the defensive player of the year honors. As a senior he led the Falcons to a win over the #3 state ranked Roosevelt Rough Riders, the highest ranked opponent defeated in school history.

Taylor’s coaching has an extreme emphasis in individual skill development on both the offensive and defensive end. He preaches “Toughness” and “Togetherness” throughout his teams as the backbone of his coaching philosophy.

Demitri Ilias

Coach

Demetri has coached in the Woodinville Select Basketball program and has been an integral part of their spring and summer off-season development programs. Demetri has a strong commitment to fundamentals and creates a challenging yet supportive environment for players.

Basketball has always been in Coach Demetri’s blood. He started his “career” in kindergarten and played all the way through High School, where he was a Captain on the Woodinville High School KingCo Championship team. That same year he was also awarded 2015 All-Kingco League Honors.

Coach Demetri is a graduate of the University of Washington, where he was able to scrimmage with the Men’s basketball team over the summers.

Charlie McElrath

Coach

Charlie has almost 20 years of youth basketball coaching experience, including 3 years with the Woodinville Select Basketball program. He has experience as a head coach and also ran small group training during their offseason. Charlie loves to see kids grow and develop as basketball players, and thrives on helping them meet their potential.

Charlie played his high school basketball at Redmond High School and has 5 children that all attended Woodinville.

Ankit Tomar

Coach

Ankit has experience coaching in the Woodinville Select program, and running small group training during their offseason program. As a coach, he believes in building lasting relationships and player development on and off the court.

As a player, Ankit first started playing basketball in the 5th grade with Woodinville Select and continued impacting Woodinville basketball all the way through his high school career. During his time as a Falcon he also played varsity golf and believes strongly that the balance and footwork learned through basketball helped him immensely.

Ankit is a recent graduate from Arizona State University and is excited to help young players grow and develop their basketball skills to the best of their ability.

Nicole Adams

Board Secretary/Coach

Basketball has been a big part of Nicole’s life since childhood and continues to be today. She participated in the NYBA and Bothell Select programs at an early age, then played at Bothell High School and on the Seattle’s Magic Black AAU traveling team. She was All District her Junior and Senior year, as well as selected to the All-State team her Senior year. She earned a full basketball scholarship and played at Western Washington University. After college, Nicole, coached for local AAU teams for a few years and worked in HR at Microsoft for 12 years until she started a family. She now loves to coach her kids and other young athletes in the same programs and leagues that she participated in growing up.

Nicole lives in Woodinville with her husband Josh and their three children. They can often be found on their Sportcourt playing hoops together, hiking or at a local dog park with their dog Blue. In addition to coaching, Nicole owns her own company that provides support, coaching and workshops for working moms.

Adam Harris

Coach

Coach Adam Harris attended Gig Harbor High School where he played varsity basketball and baseball for 3 years; winning state titles in both sports. He went on to play basketball at Seattle Pacific University, as a 4 year letterman and member of the 2000 National Semi-Final team. Harris earned Academic-All Conference honors his Junior and Senior year. He currently holds the Career 3 point % record for SPU, where he graduated in 2003 in English & Education.

Adam has extensive youth coaching experience in both boys and girls programs over the last 10 years through NSC, Woodinville Little League, AAU, & Woodinville Select. He is the proud father of 3; Anna (sophomore at WHS), Samantha (13 y/o @ Timbercrest) and Jackson (10 y/o at Sunrise Elementary). He is passionate about building foundational, fundamental skills in youth athletes and instilling sport as a microcosm for life.

Mitch Penner

Coach

Coach Mitch grew up in West Seattle and played four years as a varsity starter at Kennedy Catholic High School. Three of those years he won league MVP and accumulated 2000 points throughout his career. He continued his career at Seattle Pacific where he was 1st team All-Conference and scored 1000+ points in his career. He finished his career playing a year of professional basketball in Germany.

Mitch looks forward to running scoring specific individual trainings at Pivot. He takes great pride in his offensive creativity, and wants to pass these skills on to those with the drive and passion to increase their scoring abilities.