Matt Breitbarth enters his second season with North Dakota and his first as an Assistant Coach. He was hired by head coach Jesse Tupac in April of 2024 as the director of operations, before being elevated to assistant coach in April of 2025.
Breitbarth came to Grand Forks after spending the last two seasons as an assistant coach at the University of Rhode Island. While with the Rams he worked with many different aspects of the program: compliance, academics, organizing film sessions and scouting, supervising graduate assistants, use of Volleymetrics and more.
This past season, he helped coach Madi Disu to a place on the Atlantic-10 All-Rookie Team. Disu led the Rams with 230 kills and 265.5 points and racked up 115 digs, 34 blocks and 17 aces.
He has also coached at Chicago State, Northern Iowa and at St. Thomas Moore High School (Ill.).
Breitbarth is a graduate of the University of Illinois, where he earned his Bachelor's in Advertising and his Master's in Recreation, Sport and Tourism.
While at Illinois he was a practice player for the Illini women's program, which consistently is ranked in the AVCA top 25, as well as the President and Head Coach of the men's club volleyball team. In addition to being the Head Coach he started at setter and helped guide the team to two appearances in the club national championship, finishing as runner-up in 2019, the program's first appearance in the game, and in 2021 he helped guide the team to a victory in the national title game.
