Wildcat girls get a taste of American basketball

KORUMBURRA Wildcats 16-year-olds Chelsea Fox and Krystal Arnason experienced basketball American style last month, representing a Victorian side against US competition and attending an NBA match in Texas.

“We learned a lot about how they play their basketball, and their rules are a lot different to here,” Chelsea said, adding that the Aussies adjusted to different interpretations from the US referees compared to those in Australia.

“We got called on a lot more travels and the game is more physical,” she said.

The two-and-a-half-week trip was run through Basketball Victoria’s High Performance Program.

Chelsea played as a point guard throughout her US experience, learning that she wants to add extra physicality to her defensive efforts.

Down the track, she is interested in furthering her basketball by representing a US college.

Krystal played in the centre or as a power forward, enjoying the greater physicality and the fact that less fouls were called resulting in a more free-flowing game.

She hopes to return to America to play college basketball, preferably in one of the top couple of divisions.

“The schools have massive sports stadiums, and they live around their sport,” Krystal said.

High Performance coach for Basketball Victoria, Mat Holmes, previously the junior coach of Chelsea and Krystal at Korumburra, spoke of their determination.

“They’re talented girls who make the most of their opportunities, and hard workers who enjoy the sport and are easy to work with because they want to get better,” Mat said.

“The tour they went on is something that Basketball Victoria runs to try and expose kids that we think might have a chance of getting a college scholarship.”

It was the first such trip since the pandemic.

The Victorian squad checked out places of interest in Texas and saw the local NBA team take on Oklahoma.

Being at the game rather than watching on TV, Chelsea got a better feel for the pace of the action, also noting the crowd was “more up and about”.