Not anymore. That was then, this is now, and people have taken noticed of him.

Behind the clutch play of Oliver, who came off the bench to score a career-high 22 points in 23 minutes, the NAIA's No. 3-ranked Azusa Pacific held off a pesky Concordia for a 94-85 Golden State Athletic Conference victory in front of 833 at the Felix Event Center Saturday night.

Oliver drained 7-of-10 shots, including 3 from the arc, but none was bigger then his trey from the top of key with 67 seconds left that gave Azusa Pacific an 88-85 lead that it would not relinquish. Azusa Pacific, which at one point led by 13, lost its entire advantage, and appeared to be in deep trouble when Concordia capped an 18-8 run with a Rafael DaSilva dunk that put the Eagles up 81-79 with 3 minutes left to play. However, a minute later Oliver nailed a jumper in the key to tie the game at 83-83 and then he hit the long 3-pointer to put Azusa Pacific back in the lead for good. He scored 7 of his 22 in the final 2 minutes.

"Matt has been playing like that in practice and it was just a matter of time before he started doing that in the game," said Cougar coach Bill Odell.

Oliver's heroics tonight may have been set up in the Cougars' upset loss at Westmont Tuesday night. In that game, Azusa Pacific trailed by 10 with 6 minutes to go and could not generate any offense. Out of desperation, Oliver began shooting and making shots, and he single-handedly rallied the Cougars back into the game before they eventually lost in the waning moments.

"I definitely got confidence from the Westmont game," said Oliver, "especially when it was getting late in this game tonight. I was looking for my shot, and that 3-pointer certainly felt good as it left my hand."

Azusa Pacific owned a comfortable 52-41 lead at halftime, closing the half on a 13-4 run. Oliver nailed a 3-pointer in that run to give him 12 first-half points. The Cougars opened the second half in fifth gear, running the floor at every opportunity resulting in a couple of rim-rattling dunks that kept the margin in double digits.

"We knew Concordia liked to push the tempo on offense, but we thought they were leaving opportunities in how they got back on defense, so we decided to push it as well," said Odell.

Azusa Pacific was still up by 10 at 59-49 with 15:52 left in the game when Todd Martin tallied 2 of his 14 points on a baseline lay-up.

However, Concordia refused to go away and spent the next 12 minutes whittling the Cougar lead, using 7 different players at the offensive end to close the gap on the Cougars while holding Azusa Pacific to just 6-for17 shooting and forcing 7 turnovers.

"We made similar mistakes to those that we made in the Westmont game," said Odell. "We forced some shots and forced some passes that turned into turnovers. The difference tonight though was that we stayed at it with our heads up and kept battling."

Indeed, the game was a battle. The 2 teams combined for 47 fouls and 58 free throws, 35 by Concordia. The Cougars played the final 7 minutes without All-GSAC guard Demario Butler and the final 2 minutes without starting point guard Khalif Ford, both of whom fouled out of the game.

But Oliver would not let the Cougars drop this one.

"When Concordia took that first lead late in the game, we said during a timeout that we were not going to let this one get away. This game looked exactly like the Westmont game, but this time we weren't going to give up."

And Oliver, who came into tonight's game averaging 2.9 points for his 52-game Cougar career, led by example.

"It's been 10 times harder to get playing time here than it might be elsewhere when you consider the guys on our team," said Oliver. "So it gave me motivation to work hard this summer to get some playing time, and then when you're going up against the unbelievable talent we have every day in practice, it gives you confidence that you can do it the games."

Perhaps Oliver has no bigger fan than teammate and starting forward Scott Zea, who grabbed a career-high 10 rebounds tonight.

"Matt has made a huge improvement from last year," said Zea, "and it's because he put in his work. It's good to see someone like him to step up. I'm proud of him."

Tristin King added 17 points on 6-for-8 shooting, several of which came on reverse lay-ups while Ford finished with 11 points and a game-high 6 assists.

Concordia was paced by Kyle Huggett's 14 points while DaSilva finished with 13.

With the victory Azusa Pacific improves to 5-1 overall, 1-1 in the GSAC. Concordia falls to 6-2 and 0-1 in the GSAC.