Eight players to watch ahead of the Mount Gambier Pioneers NBL1 South debut
Mount Gambier’s only national club missed out last year due to COVID-19 – but the Pioneers are back and looking better than ever. See the stars to watch this season.
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The Mount Gambier Pioneers got its wish to join a competition considered only second to the National Basketball League only for COVID-19 to take it away.
Last year should have been the club’s debut season in the NBL1 South before it was cancelled amid the evolving pandemic and border closures.
The call was another blow for the club which was originally denied a sport in the NBL1 when it replaced the disbanded South East Australian Basketball League and instead joined SA’s Premier League for 2019.
With the wait almost over men’s coach Richard Hill was relieved, but said as the only South Australian team in the competition, border closures would remain a concern.
“It will have been more than 20 months in-between serious competition games for us,” he said.
Only two players have returned to the team from its 2019 Premier League grand final debut, and the club is in a rebuilding phase.
Hill hoped to return to the level of success the Pioneers experienced at its height and said what the 2021 line-up lacked in ‘star power’, it had in future prospects.
“We haven’t got quite as much talent as we had in the past when we were the best team in the SEABL comp for five years in a row,” he said.
“If these guys stayed together for two, three years they will be outstanding and I think there’s a chance to have a pretty good, pretty quickly.”
A condition of gaining entry to the NBL1 South was the development of a woman’s team.
Four days out from Christmas in 2018 the club got the green light and had to build the team from scratch, narrowly missing out on a grand final berth in the 2019 Premier League.
With 2020 derailed, inaugural coach Matt Sutton said they started again, but had recruited what he believed would be a competitive side.
“We were able to have some success in the Premier League in Adelaide we finished third (and) we were .5 seconds away from making the grand final – we managed that after the buzzer,” Sutton said.
“It was really unfortunate we had a really strong group put together for the COVID year and it’s a shame we weren’t able to progress with that season.”
Sutton said the women’s program faced challenges but would offer athletes the opportunity to play at a level higher than ever before in the region.
“We are optimistic and really happy to be a part of developing something that we want to be sustainable into the future,” he said.
“It’s going to take some time to really see that pathway happen but it’s established now.”
Ahead of Saturday’s season opener where the Pioneers will take on the Bendigo Braves at the Ice House, we’ve put the spotlight on eight of the team’s top players to watch.
JASMIN HOWE – CAPTAIN
Millicent local Jasmin Howe has been appointed captain of the women’s team and Sutton said her return was a huge coup for the club.
“As captain of our side Jazzy’s role won’t change, she has been our vocal leader through pre-season so far and always sets a high standard for the way she trains and prepares,” he said.
After a number of years in the US college system, Howe played two seasons under fellow Millicent export Shannon Seebohm in the Waratah League and was a development player with Townsville Fire in the WNBL.
A fierce competitor with a strong desire to develop women’s basketball, Howe said the formation of the women’s program and entry to NBL1 South competition made it an easy the decision to return home.
“I’ve grown up watching the men playing,” she said
“I think it‘s a great pathway for the region and we should have probably done that a long time ago.”
TOM KUBANK
Considered the team’s most consistent shooter, Tom Kubank will bring intensity to the court.
The son of Adelaide 36er and Townsville Suns’ Graham Kubank has strong pedigree but he credits a late growth spurt for taking him to college where he found his knack for the game.
“It was tough, 100 per cent, but I never felt like I had to make the NBL or I had to live up to a certain expectation,” Kubank said.
“I put in the hard yards over there and really developed my game and then in college I knew this is for me. I can do this.”
After two years at Lake Region State College and three at the University of Mary, Kubank returned to Australia playing for the Sydney Kings and Illawarra Hawks.
He was set to make his Pioneers debut in 2020 and said it was a no-brainer to make the move to Mount Gambier again.
“We put pretty much the whole pre-season in, that’s a fair body of work being told you’ve got to go home that’s tough, it’s heartbreaking,” he said.
“Moving down here you live and breathe basketball every day.”
HANNAH YOUNG
Sutton described experienced recruit Hannah Young as a huge weapon for the Pioneer’s offensive end.
A national swimmer who didn’t pick up basketball until 13 when a friend asked her to try out, Young spent four years at division one US college Virginia Tech before playing a season in Romania.
“It’s probably the best four years of my life. I would do it all over again if I could,” she said.
Since returning home to Australia, the Newcastle export has gone on to win two championships in the space of 12 months – first with the University of Canberra Capitals in the WNBL and then Newcastle in the Waratah League – before making her way to the South East.
NICK MARSHALL
Talented guard Nick Marshall joins the Pioneers after competing in Adelaide’s modified competition and training with the 36ers in 2020, with his stint playing US college basketball cut short by the pandemic.
The North Adelaide junior only swapped the football field for competitive basketball at 16 and in 2019 posted 12.8 points and 6.4 rebounds per game as a sophomore with Clarke University in Dubuque, Iowa.
Hill said Marshall’s athleticism and scoring mentality was an asset to the team.
“I think he could be a tremendous player. We’ve just got to knock a few of the rough edges off him,” he said.
“He is a little bigger than most of our perimeter players so he gives us a point of difference.”
Keen to return to the court, Marshall said Mount Gambier was his destination of choice as he works to further his development.
“I just want to have a good season, I want do my best, not have any regrets,” he said.
SHERRIE CALLEIA
Getting her first taste of semi-professional basketball with the Sydney Uni Sparks at 16, Sherrie Calleia was a 2018 Sydney Uni Flames development player before rupturing her ACL.
“I decided to take a whole year off to really nail my rehab,” Calleia said.
“I was going high and then that happened I was back to the bottom and to work my way up.
“It was pretty frustrating but if anything it was a very humbling experience.”
In 2020 Calleia rejoined the Flames travelling to the WNBL hub in Queensland.
“I didn’t have a massive role in the team so I could relax and observe more than anything and see what I could learn from all the other players,” she said.
“I got a bit of court time here and there but I definitely learnt a lot from that experience and it’s something I hope to carry on to now and this NBL1 with the Pioneers.”
Sutton expected the young player to be pivotal for the Pioneers.
“She’s going to have a huge role leading our team with the ball, she’s going to run the point,” he said.
“Her work rate on both ends is going to be crucial for us.”
TOM DALY – CAPTAIN
This Pioneers veteran has lived the ups and downs of the club’s tumultuous history.
In his first five seasons Daly made five grand final appearances and claimed three championships.
“Almost everything went to plan, and then in my sixth year, when we’re still in the Victorian league our team was just ravaged by injuries, I got injured and missed most of the season … that year was just a disaster and we missed the playoffs,” he said.
“After that year, we got turfed from the comp and for a while we weren’t sure whether there would be a Pioneers.
“It went really, really well for five years and it’s been pretty average for three so hopefully we can flip it around again this year.”
Playing around 70 games for the 36ers, his move to the Pioneers began as a stepping stone towards the senior NBL roster but said the community switched his focus.
Off the court Daly runs the Tenison Woods College basketball program and said the introduction of the woman’s team was creating pathways for his female students.
“It was hard to say to the girls there is no Pioneers for you guys, you have to do all this work, but then you have to play somewhere else,” he said.
“Now there’s a real tangible, hometown team that’s playing in the second best league in the country that they can work to.”
SHAKERA REILLY
Sutton said Shakera Reilly was an exciting addition to the women’s line up.
“I think it’s a really good opportunity for her to showcase her skills,” he said.
“She’s an inside, outside she can really shoot the ball and she’s going to have a big defensive role.”
Off the back of a championship with the University of Canberra Capitals as a development player, the Maitland, NSW export said taking a year off the court had recalibrated her mindset.
“I hadn’t had a year off basketball from when I started, in a lot of ways it was terrible but in my personal situation I actually needed,” Reilly said.
“It allowed me to refocus myself and made me realise my love for basketball again.”
NIK DESANTIS
A rising star has already been sidelined for the 2021 season.
Nik DeSantis will undergo a full reconstruction after injuring an ACL in a pre-season match in what Hill said was disappointing blow for the new recruit.
“He has worked incredibly hard over the last 12 months to get his game and body in outstanding shape,” he said.
“I am so impressed by his work ethic and commitment that I am confident he will be back better than ever.”
The guard had committed for the 2020 season instead playing for West Adelaide Bearcats in the Adelaide Basket Challenge where he finished third in scoring in the competition.
DeSantis said signing for the Pioneers was a career highlight.
“They’re one of the most successful clubs in Australia but I think ultimately to get to the goal that I want to get to, which is playing professionally I have to train and act like a professional and Mount Gambier has given me,” he said.
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