Building Better Basketball

Neil is joined by an Australian who has been part of one of the NBA’s biggest franchises and worked with Doc Rivers and Joel Embiid but not many of you will know her name! Carmen Colomer started off her working career with the AIS before moving into the world of Rugby with the Brumbies and the Brisbane Broncos. In 2021 she then got the opportunity of a lifetime to join the Philadelphia 76ers as the Director of Sports Science before returning home very recently to take up the position of the Head of Performance at the Perth Glory football club. 

Article discussed in episode Momentum in the Six Nations – is it real? - Rugby World

Lisa Middleton is one of Australia’s most experienced Sports Dietitians. With over 20 years spent advising some of the nation’s most elite athletes, Lisa has built expertise in reaching optimum levels of performance in sport. Lisa has an unparalleled history of working with teams at the top of their game. In her role as Sports Dietitian, Lisa has advised the Essendon, Hawthorn, Collingwood, Melbourne and St Kilda AFL Football clubs. Melbourne Vixens Netball, Melbourne Storm Rugby League, Melbourne Victory Football club and Melbourne United Basketball club.  Lisa currently consults to South East Melbourne Phoenix Basketball Club, Basketball Victoria, Collingwood AFL,AFLW Football club and Collingwood Magpies Netball.

Neil is joined by a coach who has gone from the top of Australia in Cairns right down to the bottom in Tasmania! Nic Martin is currently the State Head Coach and Development Manager at Basketball Tasmania. Nic is also just recently returned from Guam where he was one of the Assistant coaches of the Gold Medal winning U15 Australian Girls team!  Nic's coaching journey started with him shooting his shot in Townsville, a great message and journey for all young coaches!

Neil is joined by one of the most exciting players in the WNBL Steph Reid ! Steph played College basketball in the US for the University of Buffalo, picking up MVP honours and being part of their first ever NCAA tournament run! Back home in Australia she has played for the Dandenong Rangers/Southside Flyers and now with the Townsville Fire and made her Opals debut this year against Japan in Sydney! But Neil, I hear you ask Steph is a player, not a coach? Just wait! 

Darren Smith (CEO Basketball Australia Pathways) was a player himself which we will touch on but we have him on to talk about the US College pathway which is growing increasingly popular for Australian players looking to be able to gain further development of their skills, education and life experience. Darren has been through this experience himself as a player but most recently Darren has also been through it with his daughter Alanna as she secured a scholarship at Stanford University. 

Today is the crossover episode you have all been waiting for, the OG’s of the Australian podcast game, Talking Split from Basketball Victoria. We were lucky enough to have Jenni Screen on at the end of season 1 and now we get two more of the set! I’m really excited to have the Brains and Voices of that show in High Performance Coach for Basketball Victoria Country Women Zoe Carr (@ZoeCarr85 on twitter) and Rob Coulter, Coach Development Coordinator for Basketball Victoria @RobCoulter on twitter

Alex shares team and player development ideas for coaches, teams, federations, and organizations all around the world. Alex’s focus is on helping coaches stimulate their thinking by combining their personal and practical experiences with the empirical evidence which exists within the research world. Many of these evidence-informed coaching ideas that Alex shares are based upon the Constraint Led Approach (CLA) underpinned by Ecological Dynamics (EcoD). Alex specializes in helping coaches make sense of the research, putting this into basketball-specific examples so that coaches can immediately integrate these ideas into their practices. He consults for NBA, NCAA and professional teams, while also serving as Player Improvement Specialist for Paris Basketball in the EuroCup and Head Coach of College Prep in Borgomanero, Italy

Brent has an honours degree in Exercise Science, is a full time Exercise Physiologist and Strength and Conditioning coach. You might have seen Brents face on your tv’s and wondered who he was as he has roles with the Townsville Fire, Heat and Flames and the Australian Opals. Brent is the brother of Paul Goriss, one of the current assistants of the Australian Opals. We are really excited we have been able to grab a window in his busy schedule to pick his brain about creating and maintaining a body for basketball success!

Todays episode is a going to be a little bit different, a little bit more serious but you know as coaches sometime we have to deal with the tougher conversations and our guest today is going to help arm you with what you need to look out for and how you can best handle the situations in the event that something does happen to a player under your care.

Joining me today is Damien Morris, the Head of Integrity at Basketball Australia. Damien is no stranger to Basketball having held a role on the board at Knox Basketball for the last 5 years alongside roles with Tennis Australia and a 27 year career with the Vic Police.

Howard Beck is an American journalist. Beck has covered the National Basketball Association for the Los Angeles Daily News, the New York Times and more recently, Bleacher Report. Since December 2020, he has been an NBA senior writer for Sports Illustrated, where he also cohosts The Crossover podcast with Chris Mannix.

On the podcast Howard gives us his own insight into how the global nature of the NBA is changing, the role of the coach in that and shares some great NBA stories.