Team La Trobe gears up for the return of the University Basketball League

La Trobe University enters the second season of the UBL looking to become the inaugural winners of the respective Men’s and Women’s competitions, after the 2021 season was cancelled prior to the finals being played due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

At the time of the season cancellation, both La Trobe teams had booked their place in the 2021 playoffs, with the Women’s team finishing the home and away season in second and the Men’s team in fourth place.

Ahead of the first game of the 2022 UBL season next Tuesday against Curtin University in Perth, La Trobe Sport spoke to the coaches and players of both the Men’s and Women’s teams to get their take on their team’s prospects for this year:

La Trobe University Women’s UBL Squad

After their tilt at an inaugural UBL title was thwarted by the COVID-19 lockdown last year, the La Trobe Women’s UBL team is determined to experience success in 2022.

La Trobe finished in second on the home and away table in 2021, and looked well placed to contend for silverware until the season was cut short.

Such is the cyclical nature of the UBL competition, La Trobe will enter this season with some new faces on the Women’s roster after a number of graduations from last year’s squad, however second year Women’s head coach, Cameron Wilkosz, believes he will still have a strong group of players at his disposal to push for a title this season.

“We had a really good team last year, and (despite) losing some core players to graduation as is uni life I guess, we’ve done pretty well in adding some key pieces but also keeping a pretty good cohort from last season,” Wilkosz said.

“I think we’ll have a really good balance that will enable us to compete at that really high level once again.”

Second-year UBL squad member Anna Burrows said the playing group was ready for another strong season and were aiming to achieve the lofty goals they had set themselves last year.

“I feel like everyone is hungry to get more wins and improve on last year because we didn’t get to finish it (the season),” Burrows said.

“It will be good to play all the teams again and hopefully get that first UBL championship.”

La Trobe University Men’s UBL Squad

A solid opening UBL season has the La Trobe Men’s team excited about what it can achieve in season 2022.

The team had secured a finals berth after finishing in fourth on the table and were seemingly timing their run nicely with a strong back half of the season. With a strong core of experienced senior players remaining within the UBL program for 2022, new Men’s head coach Randy Shanklin is hoping his team will be able to go deep into the playoffs.

“I’m most looking forward to the challenge of getting buy-in from our entire squad on the importance of having a winning and supportive culture,” Shanklin said.

Having led the team in season one of the UBL, Men’s team captain Ovie Magbegor believes his squad has the personnel to contend in 2022.

“I think we’ll do pretty well; there’s a lot of guys who have remained from last year and there is plenty of new talent this year which will be extremely beneficial,” Magbegor said.

“I can see us winning it this year.

For more information on the University Basketball League, visit the UniSport Australia website. To keep up-to-date with our Men’s and Women’s team’s results, follow La Trobe Sport on Facebook and Instagram.