Imani Guy, center, goes up for a basket against the Willeton Tigers in a game last year. Guy was with the Eastern Suns last year and will begin her second season of the Australian Women’s NBL1 later this month.
Submitted photo
Imani Guy is blessed to have the opportunity that a lot of women miss out on doing — having the chance to play basketball out of college.
The 2017 Columbus North graduate and former University of Southern Indiana and Marian University player is set to begin her second season in the NBL1, the premier Australian semipro basketball league, later this month. Guy traveled back to Australia Saturday to start practice and preparations for the upcoming season.
It’s extremely rare for high school athletes to transform into professional leagues. The odds of a high school athlete going to college and then going to the pros is less than 1%. The odds favored Guy following college because of her 6-foot-4 stature.
“I’m fortunate and extremely blessed with the opportunity to experience it and go back for a second time,” Guy said. “I had good success my first year, and I feel very optimistic about the season and my career playing professional basketball.”
The NBL1 is separated into the five conferences — North, South, East, West and Central. The league had its inaugural season in 2019.
Mike Wolanin | The Republic Former Columbus North basketball player Imani Guy poses for a portrait at The Republic in Columbus, Ind., Wednesday, March 1, 2023. Guy is set to begin her second season in the Australian Women’s NBL1 this month.
Mike Wolanin | The Republic
This will be Guy’s second year in the NBL1. She spent last year playing for the Eastern Suns in the West Conference. This year, she’s playing in the Central Conference for the Central District Lions, which is based in the city of Adelaide in South Australia.
Guy will spend a day of rest and relaxation when she arrives, then she’ll start practicing with the team to prepare for the season on March 25. Guy estimates that there is usually two or three players from the team that are from a different country than Australia. She said last year, there were two Americans, including her, and a player from Cyprus on the team.
Basketball in Australia has its similarities and differences to America, so it took a bit of time for Guy to adjust to how it was played.
“It’s good competition playing in the NBL1. It’s a little bit different style of play in terms of the offense and how the game is called. It took me a little bit to adjust,” Guy said. “I like the opportunity to get better, and with the competition as high as it is, it helps me to continue to get better.”
Adelaide is famed as the “20 minute city” because everything is 20 minutes from the city centre, and that includes the beaches, as well. The city experiences mild winters and warm, dry summers. Since Australia is in the southern hemisphere, their seasons and daylight hours are the opposite months to what it is in Indiana.
Guy mentioned when she first arrived in Australia last year and traveled across the country, she didn’t realize how big the country really was. It is the sixth largest country in the world behind Russia, Canada, China, United States and Brazil.
“It’s a very beautiful country. It’s very diverse with people and the food. I stayed on the beach a lot, even when it wasn’t typical beach weather for the Australians, even though I thought it was warm enough,” Guy said. “Getting to be able to travel and play basketball and getting paid to travel, I love basketball so much, I would probably do it for free. It’s a really good combination. We’ll be driving and seeing different parts of Australia on our way to games. I don’t really have to plan trips because basketball takes me all over the country.”
Guy was part of the North teams that won the state championship in 2015, was state runner-up in 2016 and in the Final Four in 2017. The recently graduated and current basketball players looked up to those teams, perhaps, even looking up to Guy for having the opportunity of playing basketball following college, a chance many student-athletes won’t have.
“The support for those teams in Columbus was amazing. All of the people that come up to me and congratulating me with the things I’m doing in basketball, and they would go back and talk about that team,” Guy said. “For me, it was a time that I will never forget. I talk about those teams all the time wherever people ask me about my favorite basketball memory because winning a state basketball championship with your friends is unforgettable. It feels good to know that people still think about us and think about the team and the success that we had and look up to us as players. They want to achieve what we achieved and look up to me and want to play professional basketball.”
