Tag: Basketball

Maddie Garrick on her return to the Boomers, Olympic dreams and Baller Beats

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While it feels like a lifetime has passed since the Melbourne Boomers were knocked out of the WNBL semi-finals by the eventual champion Canberra, it’s a loss that still stings for Maddie Garrick.

“It was disappointing we didn’t get through to the grand final,” she tells The Evening Game.

“We had the team; we just didn’t produce when it mattered. We’ve still got a bit of a hangover from that.”

This sense of unfinished business meant it was ultimately an easy decision for Garrick, who was considering a move to Europe at one point, to rejoin the team for WNBL21.

“I absolutely love the Boomers,” she says.

“I loved leading the team with Cayla (George). We want to finish what we started last year, really.”

Garrick is also relishing the opportunity to represent Australia at 3×3 level and the possibility of an Olympic campaign.

She and her national teammates have recently resumed training after regaining access to the facilities at Albert Park. She credits the 3×3 game with improving her performances at WNBL level, particularly her ability to finish through contact and knock down open shots.

So does she still have ambitions of playing for the Opals, or is she exclusively a 3×3 player at the international level these days?

“Playing for the Opals has been my dream since I was a kid,” Garrick says.

“I haven’t been in the Opals squad for a few years now, and I have a good opportunity to play 3×3, which I love and is suited to my style of play. It’s a great opportunity, so I’m totally focused on that.

“But maybe one day I’ll be able to represent the Opals at an Olympic games.”

The pinball machine pace of 3×3 means players need elite levels of cardio fitness; the practices are short and sharp and far removed from traditional scrimmages. “It’s kind of not comparable” Garrick explains. “You’re using whole different energy systems. You can’t really go over an hour of training because you’re absolutely cooked from doing high-lactate drills.”



Shooting my shot in iso #swishswishbish #youmiss100percentoftheshotsyoudonttake #isolation #beerpong #tiktok

“I’m trying to put some happiness out into the world”

Off the court, Garrick is one of the most entertaining WNBL players on social media. “I just like expressing myself,” she laughs.

“I’m very easy-going and I see a lot of things I find funny. I just really enjoy bringing joy to people.”

This light-hearted content includes faux makeup tutorials, helpful video instructions on how to play a quarantine-friendly version of beer pong and pranks on teammates and coach Guy Molloy. She also likes to laugh at herself; one video shows her getting on the wrong side of a snapping turtle.

“On the serious side of things I’m trying to get the word out there about the WNBL and other things I’m passionate about,” Garrick says. “But particularly during the whole COVID, these are pretty challenging times, so I’m trying to put some happiness out into the world. It’s been fun.”



Toosie slide 💥 @champagnepapi

“You need to think of basketball as dancing”

Garrick also runs the Baller Beats Instagram and TikTok accounts with Damon Lowery, a former NBL player and 3×3 coach. The short videos see the pair running through synchronised ball-handling drills synced up with pop songs.

The idea for the account dates back some six years, but it wasn’t fully realised until recently and took off as basketball fans worldwide lapped up online content during the COVID-19 shutdown.

After filming a ball-handling video for FIBA, a number of young fans contacted Garrick with their own versions of the dribbling challenge.

“I thought: ‘that’s so cute’,” Garrick recalls. “I love that kind of feedback. Then I said to Damon: ‘Alright, we’re doing this! You’re coming along with me’”

While the choreographed videos are perfectly clickable and bite-sized content for a digital age, they also give an insight into how Lowery teaches offensive skills.

“He told me in one of the first sessions we had that you need to think of (basketball) as dancing with the ball. That’s the way he teaches moves. I took that quite literally and practiced all the time and put my music in. I thought ‘What if you could actually do these moves to music?’”

The videos are also a way for Garrick to push herself and broaden the already polished repetoire of jab steps, shimmies, feints and spins she uses to get separation from defenders at both 3×3 and WNBL competition.

“The moves I’ve been taught by Damon aren’t really taught here,” she says.

“You’ve got your standard moves but (these) come from watching NBA or Europe. We always challenge ourselves to put in one move that people might not have seen before, or one they haven’t seen a female do before.”

MADELEINE (MADDIE) GARRICK 2019/20 STATS:

Points per game = 11.1

Effective field goal percentage = 47.6%

Three-point percentage = 37.1%

Steals per game = 1.8 (5th in league)

New Perth Lynx coach Ryan Petrik on #WNBL21, coaching philosophy and Sami Whitcomb’s return

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Heading into his first season as a Head Coach at WNBL level, 39-year-old Ryan Petrik hopes to refine and retool the team’s up-tempo style as they try to climb back into the semi-finals.

Petrik takes the helm after logging five years in the program as an Assistant Coach. He has also coached in the Western Australian State League, where he previously worked with new recruits Darcee Garbin and Sami Whitcomb, and won championships in 2014 and 2015.

Here, he talks to The Evening Game about the coaches who have shaped his thinking about basketball, recruiting in the time of COVID-19 and how he plans to get the most out of his returning superstar. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Over the last few years the Lynx have played very fast, looking for a lot of fast-break points and three-point attempts. Do you see that style continuing?

Our methods will be very different, but overall our pace of play, the three-point shooting etc will be very similar. It’ll be just be a very different way of getting there.

When you coached (state league team) Rockingham, did your teams play that same uptempo, almost ‘D’Antoni ball’ style?

Yeah. It’s funny you say D’Antoni, he’s a massive, massive influence on how I coach. I’m probably not quite as in love with the Houston iso ball that he is running, but those mid-2000s Phoenix Suns teams were a very heavy influence on how we want to coach and play.

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Are there any other coaches who have influenced you?

I’m a massive fan of (Milwaukee Bucks coach) Mike Budenholzer, D’Antoni obviously, and I really like a lot of the stuff that (Miami Heat coach) Erik Spoelstra runs. 

Locally, I’ve always been a massive, massive Guy Molloy fan. Each year, his Melbourne Boomers teams come out with a whole new offence that is dedicated to that particular roster and it always makes a ton of sense. Nobody else in the league is ever running it. There is no copy and paste of Opals stuff, it’s all his own. I’ll certainly use that as an inspiration for what we do.

Do you spend a lot of time looking into whether a potential recruit will be a cultural fit?

That’s massive, especially coming from the Wildcats organisation and being really good friends with Troy Georgiu. He’s the Wildcats GM and I’ll lean on him a bit for this stuff. He’s always been a massive culture and character recruiter, as you can see in the Wildcats teams over the years. We will certainly try to use that in how we recruit.

Do you see this coming season as Darcee Garbin’s peak as a player?

You would hope so. She’s 26 now and especially as a big, they generally don’t hit their peak until their late 20s. Hopefully we’ll put in a base offence which lets her use her main weapons – she’s a really mobile, really agile big who can do a lot of really good things offensively. So if we put in place an offence based around her, Ebzery and Sam (Whitcomb), we think she’ll have at least as good a year as she’s ever had, but she’s also still trending upwards. 

Is Sami Whitcomb is a better player than when she left?

That’s a hard one to answer because the obvious answer is that yes, she’s better, but that probably does a disservice to how good she was before. It was a very high bar that she was at before she left the country. I’ve been coaching her since 2013 and what I’ve seen is that how she plays in the WNBA is very different to how she plays in France. We’ll use more of the French version. 

Having said that, we’ll build more stuff around her. We’ve had a bit of success building offences around her at a state league level. We’ll need a much, much more advanced version of that to really unlock her.

She really racked up the steals when she last played for the Lynx. Do you anticipate giving her a licence to gamble on defence and be quite aggressive on that end?

It’s funny; she was always the odd piece defensively back at state level. I’m generally a very conservative coach. I would much prefer to pack it in and make it hard for teams to get their feet in the paint, whereas Whitcomb is always one pass away, loves to jam the lane and go for steals. Generally, you wouldn’t be a fan of that, but the problem is she is so, so, good at it. We generally had team guidelines defensively, and then Sam was free to just make a read. 99 times out of 100, she would make the right read. 

We won’t be as aggressive defensively as what Andy (Stewart, previous Lynx Head Coach) was, but if Sami’s going to be so elite at getting steals like that, I won’t try to reign it in too much.

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Do you see Whitcomb as the two and Ebzery as the one, or is it more fluid than that?

It’s more fluid – we see them both as wings. They could both slide over if need be, but the plan is to play them both alongside a proper point guard. 

We’ve got some interesting thoughts on that. The thinking is if we keep them both on the wings, it doesn’t matter what set we run for a wing, we will always (get a shot) for one of them. The plan is for the first 36, 37 minutes of the game we will keep them on the wings as much as humanly possible. Then, when it’s winning time, they might need to slide over.

With the no imports rule, some younger players are likely to get more court time. How do you get them ready for WNBL level competition?

We’ll make sure we sit them down and explain what their roles are. That’s one of the biggest pieces of feedback we’ve got from players in previous years, players want to know their role is and where they sit in the pecking order. 

The team will be built around Sam, Katie and Darcee. Beyond that, is your job to facilitate and get Sam and Katie the ball or should you jack up a terrible shot? Then we get a boatload of repetition and scrimmage into them and show them (what to do) in film and practice.

We might say ‘Player X, your role is not to shoot heavily contested threes with 20 seconds left on the shot clock. Maybe that’s ok for Sami Whitcomb and Katie-Rae Ebzery, but for player nine (in the rotation), that’s not ok’. 

How much of a challenge is it preparing for the WNBL without the winter competition?

It‘s certainly a hindrance in terms of filling up the roster. We’re clear on who the first seven or so players are, but from eight to 15 it becomes very murky. It’s much harder to differentiate players when you can’t see them live. 

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Is it a significant advantage for teams like Southside and Canberra that have kept their Australian core together?

You would think so, anyway. Continuity of roster and coach should be a massive advantage whereas we will come in with 10 new players, a new Head Coach and a new offence. The benefit is that quite a few pieces we’re recruiting I’ve coached before or we’re quite familiar with. We think we’ll start behind the eight ball, but we don’t think it is a killer by any means.

Do you think it’s an advantage or disadvantage being a younger coach in the league?

There’s pros and cons to both. I’ve generally been one of the youngest at every level I’ve coached at so far. When I first became a Women’s Head Coach, I think I was the youngest. At State under ‘20s, I was one of the youngest and we got a Silver.

It would be a natural disadvantage against someone like Guy Molloy, who’s been around the league for so long. On the flipside, the positive of being so young is that you hopefully speak the player’s language a bit better. It’s probably a slight disadvantage, but there are major upsides as well.

Header image credit: TJ Dragotta, Unsplash.

TBT: Opal Jenna O’Hea on leadership, mental health advocacy

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A veteran of an Olympic campaign and two WNBL championships, Jenna O’Hea is now one of the senior figures in Australian womens’ basketball.

O’Hea spoke to The CEO Magazine from the Gold Coast, where she is part of an Opals training camp ahead of the FIBA Women’s World Cup and Olympic qualifiers to take place later this year.

A couple of months after the WNBL season wrapped up, O’Hea says the first training session of the reconvened team was “not so great” but the players had now shaken off the off-season rust and settled into a groove.

“Everyone is excited to be back,” she says. “At first there was a lot of turnovers and people just finding their way in the offence. But now, (we’ve) calmed down a bit and we’re getting a lot out of it.”

O’Hea’s off-season has involved much more than just hitting the gym and working on her jumper; she has thrown herself into community work in the break.

O’Hea on her work with mental health groups: “It’s been amazing”

Post-match interviews are often fairly routine affairs as out-of-breath players lament that they didn’t shoot better or vow to hit the boards harder next game.

An interview that O’Hea did after one game last season went somewhere else entirely, however. As tears streaked down her face, she talked about how her family had been going through a tough time after her uncle had recently taken his own life.

The rawness and honesty struck a chord with many and the tragedy prompted O’Hea to become involved in mental health advocacy. In the final WNBL round, she drove a leaguewide initiative to team with Lifeline and raise awareness and funds for the charity.

She was also named one of the Lifeline Community Custodians, an initiative with the Australian Institute of Sport that involves athletes from different sports coming together to raise awareness of mental health issues.

Last week, O’Hea travelled to Sydney with 15 of the other custodians to get to know each other and undertake training.

“It’s been amazing,” O’Hea says. “To learn how we all came to be in the Community Custodians program, it was an extremely emotional day.

“Everyone goes through things and battles differently, to learn all about that was amazing. Now we can take that and share it with the community and really be a positive force in the community for mental health awareness.

“I can’t wait for the next 12 months to see how we can help the community and make a difference.”

Sports becoming more cognisant of mental health issues

O’Hea first entered professional basketball ranks as a lanky young wing at the Australian Institute of Sport in the 2003/04 WNBL season. She says that the sport has become far more aware of mental health issues during her time in the game. Opals players now have access to mental health resources if they need them, especially after tournaments and during injury recovery when some players can feel low.

She says that high-profile athletes such as NBA champion Kevin Love speaking out about their mental health battles have been hugely important.

Closer to home, many involved in elite sport, such as Lauren Jackson (O’Hea’s Assistant General Manager at the Melbourne Boomers) and WNBL Head Sally Phillips have talked openly about their own struggles with anxiety.

“There is a stigma around mental health and we need to constantly try to decrease that,” O’Hea says.

“That will just continue to improve as it is spoken about more. It’s constantly a work in progress.”

On leadership

Widely admired around the league for her work ethic and ability to contribute on both ends of the floor, O’Hea has a real den mother demeanour during games, constantly encouraging and calming teammates.

She seems a natural choice to lead teams and last year, she captained a star-studded Opals team to a silver medal at the World Cup.

“I love it,” she says of the leadership role. “It’s something that really suits me. I want to help the younger players as much as I can because I got a lot of really good help when I was young.

“We have a lot of really talented young stars and being able to help them fit in and teach them the offence, it’s been a great experience for me.”

Teammate Ezi Magbegor is headed for the WNBA

One of the Opals’ youth brigade is 19-year-old Ezi Magbegor, a teammate of O’Hea’s both at the Melbourne Boomers and in the Opals set-up.

Magbegor was recently picked 12th in the WNBA draft by O’Hea’s former team, the Seattle Storm. O’Hea says she is excited to see the youngster’s career develop and believes she is starting to feel comfortable at professional level.

“She’s becoming a lot more confident,” she says of Magbegor.

“When I first got in Opals camp with her, she was very quiet and very softly-spoken whereas now she’s coming out of her shell a lot more.

“She’s an absolute sponge. She wants to learn and she just picks things up very quickly. Then when she picks things up it helps with her confidence.”

Originally published in The CEO Magazine.

Maddy Rocci is “super excited” to return to the champion Capitals

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Maddy Rocci was one of the league’s big improvers in season 2019/20, emerging as a committed, high energy perimeter defender and a resourceful passer.

Having played just under six minutes in game three of the 2019 grand final, the 22-year-old guard earned 37 minutes in this year’s decider.

She recently re-signed with the University of Canberra Capitals for a tilt at a rare three-peat.

Along with Rocci, Marianna Tolo, Kelsey Griffin, Keely Froling, Alex Delaney and Abby Cubillo have all committed to another year. It makes for a level of continuity that Rocci believes will give the group a running start.

“It’s always good to try and keep a core group together,” she tells The Evening Game. “It’s hard playing with players you haven’t played with before and it takes you a while to get rolling.  

“Having the six of us return is super exciting. We know how each other plays, how we train and we know how to work hard.

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Rocci is currently based in Brisbane, having moved north expecting to work at a local school and play in the WNBL1 over winter. With that competition scrapped, she has been doing individual training with a coach and has recently been allowed back into basketball courts.

Having watched former teammate Olivia Epoupa diligently arrive before training to fine-tune her ball-handling, Rocci is now focusing on this skill, along with three-point shooting. Her long-range percentage has already improved steadily; she made only one of 12 three-pointers in her rookie year, jumped to 32.6% in year two and put up 36.1% last year while taking twice as many shots from the previous season.

Further honing these guard skills will serve her well in a campaign where there will be no imports and the Capitals will be adjusting to life without Epoupa and reigning MVP Kia Nurse. Both were high-usage players and focal points of the team’s attack; they took a combined 69 shots over the two grand final games. Their absence will likely mean Rocci is tasked with more a scoring responsibility.

It’s a challenge she is up for. “You can’t replace such great talent,” she says of the pair. “But I’m looking to step up, take on a bigger role season and really develop my game”.

One other player looking to fill that void will be new signing Tahlia Tupaea, a close friend of Rocci’s.

Rocci believes she will alternate between the one and two alongside the similarly versatile Tupaea, a former teammate in Australian youth teams. “Gorrie (coach Paul Gorris) said I’d play a bit more of the one (next season), which is super exciting because I’ve always been a point guard until recently.

“To be able to play (both guard positions) is something I’ve always wanted. I don’t want to be a player who can only play one position.”

MADDISON (MADDY) ROCCI 2019/20 STATS:

Points per game = 9

Effective field goal % = 47.5%

Assists per game = 2.3

Assist/turnover ratio = 1.1

WNBL#20: Where is the league at, 40 years in?

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When Adelaide Crows co-captain Erin Phillips lifted the AFLW champion’s trophy aloft in front of more than 50,000 fans, the Australian women’s basketball fraternity could have been forgiven for viewing the moment with a bittersweet pang. The triumph was the apex of a remarkable cross-code transition by one of the best Australian basketballers of her generation, but the headlines and record-breaking crowds would have been foreign to many involved in Phillips’ old WNBL stomping ground.

Continue reading on The Saturday Paper

Lauren Jackson and Carrie Graf: two legends discuss #WNBL20

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Lauren Jackson and Carrie Graf are two of the greatest winners in WNBL history. Talking to this site at the launch of the league’s historic 40th season, they reflected on the past, present and vibrant future of the competition.

 

Jackson’s first memory of the league is a quirky one; she saw Trish Fallon on a current affairs show training to throw down a slam dunk. “I’ll never forget this,” Jackson recalls. “I was just a young girl, but I remember at the time West Coast Wine Coolers was a sponsor of the WNBL and they had put $10,000 on the table for the first woman to dunk it.”

Jackson was only 12 or 13 when she saw this forgotten chapter of league history and became intrigued by the world of professional basketball. Remarkably, she and Fallon would share the league’s MVP award just a few years later.

Today, she retains that initial excitement towards the sport, the fire that fuelled a storied career, including five championships with the University of Canberra Capitals and a stunning triumph with the youthful AIS squad.

Looking ahead to WNBL20, she is excited to see Perth Lynx import Imani McGee-Stafford in action. “She’s going to be very exciting and a big player in this league. She would have been able to mix it with Lizzie (Cambage).

“Then there’s the Opals – Abby Bishop is back in our league. There’s a lot of great people that are out here and hopefully that will take us to great places.”

For her long-time coach, six-time WNBL champion Carrie Graf, silky Canadian Kia Nurse is a firm favourite. Graf says the returning Capitals standout reminds her of Alana Beard, the WNBA all-star she coached as part of the 05/06 Capitals side. “They’re pure athletic talents,” she enthuses. “They can break peoples’ ankles with their ability to change direction on a five-cent piece.”

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On Opals and imports

Graf believes imports have added an extra element of flair to the league over the years. “I think their passion for the game is exciting to watch,” she says.

“Sometimes, the Aussie players tend to hold back in showing that, but the US imports tend to be more overt when they make a big play and I think that’s entertaining. But I look back at some Aussie athletes who did bring that; Tully Bevilaqua was a classic. When she came home from playing in the WNBA, she thought: ‘You know what? It’s fun to celebrate the big plays and get the crowd engaged’.”

Graf is also heartened to see many of the Opals squad members playing domestically. “They’re legit world stars…they set the standard for how Australians play: gritty defence, intelligent, hard-working and with a fair amount of flash.”

Coach Carrie on WNBL’s 40th season

The master coach, cutting a dapper figure in a blazer and a black broad-brimmed hat, sees the upcoming competition as even and difficult to predict. She does, however, particularly like the chances of her old team, the University of Canberra Capitals, and the battle-tested roster assembled by new franchise Southside Flyers.

She believes the game’s analytics-fuelled evolution towards ‘pace and space’ basketball will continue, with teams looking to run and seeking out either lay-ups or three-pointers. “The mid-range game has been lacking in basketball in general,” she notes.

“But trends in the sport can shift and if a team is a successful with a strong mid-range game, that will shift a whole league.”

Whatever the stylistic differences from her coaching era may be, Graf sees the current crop of players as historically good.

“The depth of talent across the league is probably the best it’s been in the past decade,” she says.

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A new role for the GOAT Jackson

Jackson emphatically says she is loving her new role as Head of Women’s Basketball. She is proud to have all games livestreamed this year and believes that the ongoing relationship with Fox Sports as well as an injection of new staff, including a newly appointed Chief Marketing Officer, will help achieve the visibility she sees as the lifeblood of the league.

“There’s definitely challenges, no doubt. Business is so different to being an athlete; dealing with people on that level is very different. But I love being part of the league again and working towards something that I’m so passionate about.”

The future

Both Graf and Jackson are in favour of an expanded competition at some point. Graf says a Brisbane team makes sense, but also nominates Newcastle as a “really intriguing” location for a new franchise.

Jackson notes there were discussions about a ninth team last year and is hopeful the WNBL can scale up. “We’ve just got to make sure that we’re a sustainable league and teams that come in are also sustainable so they can keep moving forward with the league.”

“We’re in a really good place,” Jackson concludes. “We may not be as visible as AFLW or whatever, but we are working towards getting there.

“I think we’re on the cusp of something really exciting. We’re getting all the pieces together and then we’re just going to keep growing.”

Header image credit: &DC from Coulsdon, Gtr London

#WNBL20: notes from a historic season launch

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In the genteel surrounds of Old Parliament House, the WNBL launched its 40th season. The Evening Game was there to soak up the occasion and quiz some of the competition’s key players on the upcoming campaign.

Defending champions start as favourites

With Kia Nurse, Marianna Tolo and reigning MVP Kelsey Griffin all back on board, the University of Canberra Capitals’ squad retains plenty of its championship lustre heading into #WNBL20.

By the time last year’s finals rolled around, the Capitals were less a team with momentum than a basketballing avalanche, but there was still a genuinely challenging moment for them after losing game two of the finals. The match saw them endure one of the most dramatic and heartbreaking defeats in a WNBL decider. Coach Paul Goriss gives an insight into how they picked themselves up after it.

“It wasn’t so much the physical fatigue, it was more mental fatigue,” he explains. “I won’t hide the fact that it took us a full day to get over the hurt and pain of that loss. But I think that’s what drove us in game three. We wanted to make amends.”

Nicole Seekamp’s last-second game-winner forced the first finals game three in WNBL history, but the setback had a silver lining for Gorris’ team. “It gave us the opportunity to come back home and win it in front of our home crowd, which was really important to us.”

Goriss believes every WNBL team have improved their squad since last year but that his team is well-equipped despite losing two of the league’s all-time great point guards in Leilani Mitchell and Kelly Wilson. “There’s not a replacement for those two, but it’s about getting the next best player we can,” he says. 

“Their experience and knowledge of the league is a huge loss but we’ve got Olivia Epoupa coming in and she’s played in big games in Europe and for France in the Olympics and World Championships.”

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Bendigo Spirit: killers on the road?

Diminuitive point guard Tessa Lavey inspired baffled laughter through the grand Old Parliament House members’ room when she revealed the Spirit had been playing “the murder game” on a recent pre-season road trip.

“It’s really fun,” she told The Evening Game, outlining the rules, which see players draw either a V (for victim) or an M (for murderer) out of a hat and then plot to figure out the assigned killer.

On-court, the Spirit promise to be just as fun, if a little less murder-y. The whippet-like Lavey is made for up-tempo basketball and says she opted for a return to Bendigo partly for the run and gun offence new coach Tracy York plans to implement.

“We’re going to try to lead from our defence, make sure we get in the lanes, make teams do something different and then just run,” Lavey says. Expect full-court presses and fast-break points galore.

Small-ball line-ups are also likely to be part of the M.O, with Lavey likening their new offence to the multiple-guard groups York oversaw as assistant coach of the Adelaide 36ers.

She anticipates playing long minutes alongside Kelly Wilson. “I think we’ll play a lot of swing one-two, where whoever gets the ball runs the play and vice versa.” It looms as an, ahem, killer backcourt pairing.

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The Sydney-Canberra shuffle

Lauren Scherf has switched from the Capitals to the University of Sydney Flames, a transfer that should instantly improve the latter’s rebounding and second chance points tallies. These were two areas where they struggled mightily last season after the injury-enforced absence of Alex Bunton.

The Flames have a new coach (Katrina Hibbert) and a new look without retired leader Belinda Snell, but Scherf says they still have some of the DNA of the side that romped emphatically to a championship in 2016/17.

“There’s still a few girls there and they’re very hard-working and passionate, so it’s a good environment. ‘Froggy’ (Hibbert) brings a lot of energy and a good atmosphere to the team, so I think if we have a good spirit, we can really do well.”

Standing at 196cm (6”4), Scherf could be pigeonholed as an interior player, but she’s seen the recent trend towards more and more three-pointers reshape the game and doesn’t mind it one bit.

“I do love to shoot a three myself,” she laughs. “(Bigs) being able to spread the floor, it’s changing the game. It’s making this league and the international game ten times better.”

Suzy Batkovic on WNBL19, the evolution of the game and the 1999 AIS WNBL triumph

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Suzy Batkovic’s career achievements are staggering, reading like some basketball version of that old Christmas carol: seven WNBL all-star five appearances, six MVPs, five championships, four WNBL top shooter awards and three (should have been four) Olympic tournaments.

The sheer weight of numbers easily makes her case as one of the league’s all-time greats, but what the accolades don’t quite convey is the hunger and competitiveness that she brings every game and that have made her one of the great winners not just in the WNBL but in all Australian sport.

The finish line is now in sight with Batkovic announcing this will be her last campaign. But she says the thought of retirement is still “surreal” and won’t be front of mind during the season. “I think it will be more put on the back burner, and I’m just focusing on my job at hand,” she tells The Evening Game.

“I still have plenty to give. I still love the game, and I know that eventually, I’ll miss it. But for me, it’s just business as usual.”

Reflecting on the evolution of the league, Batkovic says the days of easybeat teams have passed and talent is now evenly spread. “You could go back quite a few years ago, and you had your top half, and your bottom half. There’s no game where (you think) ‘At least we’ve got this team, and we should be fine against them’. You’re battling every team. I think that’s great. That’s what we want the league to be like.”

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The virtue of stubbornness: “I didn’t want to be put in a box”

Batkovic has long been dominant around the rim, but her game is based on a lot more than simply muscling into the key. She has a soft touch from mid-range, an excellent passing game from the post and enough nous to inevitably get to her favoured left hand and preferred shooting spots.

Discussing the evolving game and a trend of bigs increasingly becoming three-point shooters, Batkovic says the best fours and fives have always had a broad skill set.

“If you look at Lauren (Jackson), she has always shot threes,” she says. ”Myself, if I’m wide open, I’ll take a three ball. Darcee Garbin – that’s one of her strengths. Ally Mallott is the same.

“I still have plenty to give. I still love the game, and I know that eventually, I’ll miss it. But for me, it’s just business as usual – Suzy Batkovic on her final season”

“Back in the day, I remember people used to say: ‘Oh, posts, you just shoot from in here (the paint) and I remember thinking: ‘No, I’m not doing that. I’ll be working on everything’. I didn’t want to be put in a box.

“I was lucky enough that I had coaches that allowed me to work on that aspect of my game. I was probably a bit stubborn. I didn’t want to just be a post player, I wanted to be capable of doing a bit of everything.”

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“Just a bunch of kids”: the historic 98/99 AIS WNBL champions 

Batkovic’s first WNBL championship came in one of the most remarkable teams in the last quarter-century of Australian sport; the AIS student athlete team of 1998/99. It’s difficult to think of a comparable victory to this team of teenagers, who were assembled as a purely developmental team and ended up powering to an elite professional title.

That squad was a once-in-a-lifetime collection of talent with Penny Taylor and Kirsten Veal in the backcourt, Belinda Snell spacing the floor and an imposing Batkovic-Jackson frontcourt. Batkovic says the team also had an ideal mentor in Phil Brown, now an assistant coach at the University of Canberra Capitals.

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“He was a tremendous coach,” Batkovic recalls. “We were basically just a bunch of kids and, if anything, he probably coached us at our toughest point, when we were all going through different things. Puberty and whatever else, growing up. He was just incredible, the way he handled us and there was a lot of respect there.”

Batkovic says she entered the AIS not knowing all the rules of basketball and having never heard of a five-man-weave. She left a much more polished player and a champion.

In Lauren Jackson’s ‘My Story’, she recalls a turning point in the season where the coach and players met and agreed to shift from a development team evenly sharing minutes into a group firmly set on the unlikeliest of championships. Batkovic also remembers that moment well. “We were just playing and enjoying it, but you didn’t really think, like, “Oh, wow, we could actually win this.” Batkovic says.

“(Brown) kept his composure and kept us composed. We connected really well and I think a lot of credit goes to him, the way he handled everything. He took the pressure off for us so we could just go out there and play.”

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A friendship with the GOAT

Batkovic will exit the game with a lot of friends across the league and beyond. Abby Bishop is a close mate. Lauren Jackson, an old AIS teammate, is another. “We went through a lot together,” Batkovic says of Jackson. “We did NSW Country (junior rep team) together, AIS, representing Australia together and then we played in the WNBA together. We got to know each other so well.”

The pair still talk or text every week. “Even though she’s retired, she’s still that person for me,” Batkovic says. “She’s still that close friend. We share a lot of memories together. Our friendship wasn’t just all highs though, we have had the lows together.

“When we were younger, we both had stubborn and strong personalities. It was like: ‘How do you deal with this person?’ But over time, it just sorted itself out, and we got to really know each other, and bonded.

“Now, I’m grateful to have played with the best female basketballer Australia’s ever seen. I’m very grateful for that.”

Header image credit: Bruce

WNBL19: University of Capitals coach Paul Goriss on Kristy Wallace signing and a new look team

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Speaking to this site after the 2016/17 WNBL season wrapped up, University of Canberra Capitals coach Paul Goriss reflected on some of the talented players that had come through the AIS when he coached there. Many of the youngsters he had worked with had become household names – Matthew Dellavedova, Dante Exum and Ben Simmons.

But there was one “very special player” he mentioned that was relatively unknown at the time – Kristy Wallace.

Since then, Wallace has further honed her craft at Division I program Baylor and played a starring role in Australia’s gold medal winning 2017 World University Games team.

She has also signed a two-year deal with the University of Canberra Capitals, reuniting with Goriss for her first professional basketball.

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‘Unleashing the beast’

Goriss says the intangibles Wallace brings immediately stood out when he coached her back in 2014. “There’s very few people that I’ve coached that have that drive and tenacity and want to get better,” he says.

“My first impression of her was someone that loves the game of basketball, wants to be the best that she can and goes about it with such a high work ethic.”

The 22-year-old Wallace will now need to call on all of that work ethic to overcome the ACL injury that brought her college career with the Baylor Bears to a premature end.

The team have no doubt she can make a full recovery, however. “We’d already spoken prior to her doing her ACL,” Goriss says.

“Whether she was injured or nor we started speaking to her very early on about coming back and playing WNBL.

“The knee injury was very unfortunate, but we’re standing by her because I know how valuable she will be to our group.”

After completing studies at the Texan college, Wallace is expected to arrive in Canberra around June, where she will undertake a full medical examination and the timeline for her return to court will become clearer.

Such a major injury requires a long and taxing rehabilitation program, though Goriss has a good-natured chuckle at the suggestion the team may look to ease her into the rotation when she returns.

“Mate, there’s no easing with her,” he says. “The thing will be us trying to stop her going full tilt at everything she does.

“We’ll throw her into the line-up depending on where she’s at medically and we’ll make sure all the boxes are ticked before she gets on court. But one thing we know with Kristy is this – as soon as we unleash the beast, the beast will be at 150%.

“There will be no stopping her, I’m sure, once she gets out there.”

Wallace’s fit on the team

Wallace’s ability as a scorer and distributor were a major part of why WNBA team Atlanta Dream drafted her in the second round and view her as a valuable long-term prospect. But her leadership and lionhearted defence are equally impressive parts of her game and led to her winning Baylor’s ‘Hustle and Courage’ award.

A long 5’11 guard who was a great floor general for Baylor, Wallace is seen as a combo guard by the team. Goriss says she will be a good fit alongside one of the team’s prized signings, Leilani Mitchell.

When coaching Wallace at National Under 19s level, Goriss played her in the backcourt alongside Flames prodigy Tahlia Tupaea, and says Wallace and Mitchell could form a similar switching 1-2 duo.“No one was a point guard or an off guard (in that team), it was whoever has the ball brings it up the floor and the other becomes a lane runner.

“We’re not going to pigeonhole Kristy into a role. She’s got unbelievable speed, so we want to enhance that, whether it’s the ball in her hands or not.

Goriss also believes Wallace’s ability to play as a primary ball-handler will free up Mitchell, a career .395 shooter from three-point range at WNBA level, to play off ball and function as more of a pure scorer.

On the defensive end, Goriss says Wallace has the length and athleticism to guard small forwards as well as guards. “Our league doesn’t really have too many threes that will really take you down and post you up. So, I think she can definitely guard a one, two or three.”


Goriss welcomed the retired Carly Wilson to the coaching staff last season. "Carly has a great basketball IQ" he says. Photo: Vanessa LamGoriss welcomed the retired Carly Wilson to the coaching staff last season. "Carly has a great basketball IQ" he says. Photo: Vanessa Lam

Goriss welcomed the retired Carly Wilson to the coaching staff last season. “Carly has a great basketball IQ” he says. Photo: Vanessa Lam

Big name players, big time expectations

Wallace, of course, isn’t the only big signing the University of Canberra Capitals have made. Marianna Tolo, Kelsey Griffin and Leilani Mitchell are all players who have been in MVP contention in this league before. Individually, each moves the needle. Collectively, they give the team a big three that has already got people talking about championships.

“We’re not going to shy away from that,” Goriss says. “We’ve recruited the team to make the top four and to push for a championship run. I think that kind of expectation is good to have.

“I also think we’ve got the right character within the group. Number one, they’re good people and number two, they’re good basketball players. They all want to play together, they want to make the team work and they’re invested in it”

Goriss concedes such a new-look team may take time to gel. “I guess that’s always one of the big challenges with a new group and unfortunately we’ve had to bring in the majority of our group over the last two seasons.”

Mitchell, Tolo and Griffin have all played for the Opals at various stages, where Goriss is an assistant coach. The Capitals will run some of the same offensive systems, meaning there is some inbuilt familiarity for the incoming or returning players.

The team still has a handful of roster spots to fill, including both import spots and Goriss says they are likely to bring in an import three, as well as a player to start at the two until Wallace can play. A big to fill in for Marianna Tolo, who also has an ACL injury, is also on their shopping list.

Goriss also reflected on the value of having club legend Carly Wilson as one of his assistant coaches last season. “Carly has a great basketball IQ,” he says. “It was difficult for her working a full-time job and then coming to practice and the games, but what she knows about the players and the WNBL was invaluable.

“She has that perspective of a newly retired player and can bring what it’s like out on the floor into the coaching seat. And she can relate to the players, that’s a great quality of hers.”

The homecoming: Marianna Tolo on her WNBL return to the UC Capitals

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With all-star five calibre stars in Leilani Mitchell and Kelsey Griffin already locked in, the University of Canberra Capitals have made an aggressive change of direction in the off-season. Their latest signing is one of the city’s favourite daughters, Marianna Tolo, returning after a year in Turkey.

Her stint with Abdullah Gül Üniversitesi was cut short by a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament, but Tolo says it is good to be back anyway.

“It’s definitely nice to be home. You get to enjoy the little things you miss when you’re overseas.”

With the injury having occurred almost two months ago, Tolo has already progressed back into light track work and jumping and hopes to be running again in a month.


Tolo reunites with coach Paul Goriss. "I’m happy to play for him again," she says. "He’ll do everything to put the best team forward." Photo: University of Canberra.Tolo reunites with coach Paul Goriss. "I’m happy to play for him again," she says. "He’ll do everything to put the best team forward." Photo: University of Canberra.

Tolo reunites with coach Paul Goriss. “I’m happy to play for him again,” she says. “He’ll do everything to put the best team forward.” Photo: University of Canberra.

Having previously suffered the same injury in 2015, she says the recovery process is slightly smoother this time.

“I feel like I’ve got a better range of movement and I’m stronger.

“I’m also not as fearful because I’ve been through it before. I know what I can and can’t push, I know what to expect.”

A ruptured ACL brings with it one of the most gruelling rehabilitation processes of any sports injury, but Tolo is upbeat and enjoying  the familiar environment and high-level rehabilitation  facilities available in Canberra.

“I would prefer to (rehab) at the AIS over anywhere else in the world.

“I think we have the best facilities and the best staff and everything you need to help you through that process. I’m really grateful that I have the opportunity to do that.”

The University of Canberra Capitals have several more roster sports to fill, but there is already the core of a title contender in place and the tantalising possibility of a Mitchell/Tolo pick and roll being a staple of their offence.

The addition of Kelsey Griffin alongside Tolo in the frontcourt should also significantly bolster the team’s rebounding and ability to get second chance points, where they ranked only seventh and sixth respectively last year.

Tolo’s return also instantly improves the group’s ability to protect the rim. One of the WNBL’s elite shot blockers, she also holds the league record with a ludicrous 13 blocks in a single game.

Her impact off the court, however, may be as valuable her two-way contributions on it; in a previous interview with this site coach Paul Goriss described her as “irreplaceable” and “just amazing with the playing group.”

Her presence at training will likely be particularly beneficial for young bigs Lauren Scherf and Keely Froling, both aged 22 and already double-double beasts at SEABL level.

Tolo says she is more than happy to play mentor. “I’m a bit older now, and with that comes a bit of responsibility to try to help as many people as you can.

“I’ll be looking to help them get the most out of their experience and get a little bit better every day. I will try to push them at training and I’m sure they will push me as well.”


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Admitting to some pangs of jealousy while keeping an eye on the WNBL from Europe last season, Tolo says the league is on an upwards trajectory with its return to television.

“I feel like more people were engaged and definitely more people were talking about it.

“I’m glad that we’re making progress and I look forward to more changes we can make and ways we can step forward even further.”

Her return may to the court may not be until late in the year, but Tolo is already looking past that and eyeing a return to the post-season for the UC Capitals.

“Hopefully, we’ll get back on track during this season and bring a championship back to Canberra.

“I would love to have that experience again, it’s been a long time.”