Supercats lay out a welcome mat for Blicavs
THE Supercats have started talks with Australian Opals Sara Blicavs and Alex Bunton, with plans to lure the stars back to Geelong next season.
Blicavs hasn’t played basketball since rupturing her ACL and fracturing her knee in the WNBL last November, while Bunton spent the winter in rehab at Canberra’s Australian Institute of Sport after injuring her knee in July last year.
Bunton has been signed by WNBL club Sydney Uni Flames for the summer, while Blicavs is set to line up for the Dandenong Rangers for a fourth year.
Supercats chief executive Dean Anglin said the pair topped the club’s wishlist.
“We’re certainly in conversations with them to try and get them back to the club,” he said.
“From a Sara point of view, it will be exactly the same it was before she did her ACL. Her goal will be to make a WNBA roster.
“If she can’t make a WNBA roster then we’d hope she’d end up with us for the winter to try and get herself back up to 100 per cent.
“We’re pretty comfortable and confident she calls this place home and this is where she wants to be playing, so if she’s in Australia we’d hope she’s playing for us.”
Meanwhile, the club remains open to recruiting Eric Gaff if the American import can secure Australian citizenship.
Anglin said the club had not committed to re-signing im- ports Demarcus Gatlin and John Davis, and would not know the make-up of its imports until it found a suitable replacement for retired captain Nathan Herbert.
“From our starting five point of view, with ‘ Herby’ coming out, that changes the dynamic of the import combo you need,” he said.
“We’ve got to focus on making sure we secure the points side of it and making sure we get a combination of people who can score enough to cover the loss of Nathan Herbert.
“That might mean that De- marcus or John is not the right person in that mix, or it might mean we find an Australian who can replace ‘Herby’ and we get them both back.”
Anglin said he also had no issue with Corio Bay Stingrays trying to pinch Supercats big man Ma’alo Hicks.
“If Ma’alo doesn’t want to play for us and wants to play for them, that’s his choice,” he said. “We’d love to have him still, obviously we think he’s a massive part of our chances and we’re really keen to make sure we keep the strongest possible core group we can.”