In semester 1, I was fortunate to be selected into the All Saints Specialised Basketball Program, run by Mr Haxby. Mr Haxby is a teacher at ASC who loves and has great passion for Basketball as he played in professional leagues overseas, and at the Perth SBL (Now known as NBL1) league. The program just commenced this year and as the first batch of students involved, I was very excited. The class contains of around 20 students both boys and girls. On our double periods, we take a quick 3 minute bus ride down to the Willeton Tigers Stadium to play and train there, and on our singles, we did many activities. These activities consisted of, incursion from professional athletes, strength/cardio training, basketball concepts, basketball movies (Coach Carter), athletic combine, shooting drills, theory, and more. As Spec (Specialised) Basketball has been one of my favourite subjects, I will be sad to stop doing it next semester.

I have played in Willeton Tigers Domestic league for since year 4 . I was in a Bullets team from year 4-5 (9-10 years old) and this was the first time I played basketball. Starting from Year 6 (12 years old), I enrolled at the All Saints team at Willeton Tigers domestic, switching teams from Bullets to my school team (My team and I came 1st and 2nd in the seasons). All Saints College have a basketball association enrolled at the Willeton domestic league and this created a direct pathway from my school to basketball. From year 6 to current time (year 10 or15 years old), I have stayed in this All Saints team. Also I have played for two other domestic clubs of Cockburn Domestic and Redback Domestic where I started Redbacks in Year 7, and Cockburn in Year 10, this year. Also, I tried out for WABL ( Western Australian Basketball League), a specialised basketball league, at Willeton, 2 seasons ago, and also at Redbacks, 2 seasons ago and last season. This year was the first time I have ever been selected to play for a WABL team at a different club. Kalamunda Eastern Suns have chose me to play for one of their U18 Men’s teams, which is going well so far.

Player Profile

Player profile is a small summary of an athlete identifying key parts of them. This is like a quick description for the athlete.

West Coast Eagles AFL Woman’s Presenters

During the start of Term 2, my class and I were visited by the AFL Woman Nutritionist coaches who prepare and make foods, meals, plans, pre/post game foods for the West Coast Eagles Woman’s team. These 2 nutritionists came to All Saints and taught us a healthy meal schedule for athletes.

We brought out a timetable and wrote down things we usually eat on a day-to-day basis. We compared what we usually ate to what a AFL Woman’s athlete usually eats to see the difference of a professional athlete to a teenager. I found this incursion very interesting as I learnt many new things about how foods can effect performance of an athlete and certain dietary requirements there are for sports.

How do I perceive skill training and/or personal physicality

I really enjoy playing basketball as I love playing the sport and watching the sport. I love the NBA, were I support the Philadelphia 76ers since 2018 because of Ben Simmons, who is an Australian NBA player. For the last 2 years, I have been training hard in basketball to improve and get better, and make special basketball teams/squads. I really enjoy getting taught by Mr Haxby as he is a talented basketballer with lots of knowledge for the game. He taught me many aspects of basketball and continues to mentor me. I also started going to gym to gain muscle mass and strength which will greatly help my basketball. I train at home and gyms and I play for multiple teams to improve skill and cardio.

Offensive concepts

In our offensive concepts, we focused on how to attack a zone. What specific plays to run to free up space on the court to find open shots. We also trained our ball-handling and passing to teammates. We ran specific drills off screens with different variations for different scores. Such as, pull-up jump shot on the elbow, pick and roll with the screener, pick and pop with the screener, drive and kick to the corner-sitter, and shot in the keyway for ball-handler. Main fundamental skills were worked on to help focus on faster movement and sharper clean gameplay. We practised many different shooting drills to help work on our shot in game. We also learnt how to attack the defender, and how to beat them off the dribble.

Defensive concepts

In our defensive concepts, we mainly focused on something called a ‘Shell Drill’. This is where 4-5 players in a zone-like structure play defence. The defence can be run when the players are playing 5 out, with all players out on the 3-point line. We ran this defensive concept for a couple weeks as we practised and train this defence. High-level professional teams use this defence and so it is very important. On the defence side, the player guarding ball must be arms-width of the player and be playing on ball, as every other player plays in the gap to deny ball entry and pick passes mid-air. When someone drives from the corner/wing, the defender hedges he/she to baseline when the furthest away defender comes and double teams, denying entry into the keyway. We also focused on how to defend somebody off a screen and how to slip or pop up on a screen. We also learnt basic defending techniques and tips.

Where to from here?

For my career, I would like to play WABL for my last seasons (3-4 seasons left) and stay involved with domestic basketball leagues, such as Willeton Tigers Domestic and Redbacks Domestic. I would also like to play for a NBL1 team which will be the highest form of basketball I will attempt for. Through playing in a WABL association, that also opens up NBL1 opportunities I can try for. I will also like to coach teams and mentor younger players as a trainer as I have lots of love for the game. Lastly, when I have children, I will also get them heavily involved with basketball from a young age, as I only started playing basketball more competitively roughly end of Year 8. Even as I get older, I would like to stay integrated in basketball as a trainer, coach, player and other.