Opal on rebound in wake of illness

NOT long after Tiana Mangakahia had been included in the Opals training squad she felt a lump on her left breast.

Weeks later the then 24year-old basketball player — Syracuse University’s star point guard and a Tokyo 2020 Olympic prospect — was undergoing chemotherapy.

The Brisbane native remained in New York State in the US for eight rounds of treatment, culminating in a double mastectomy followed by reconstructive surgery.

Plans to dominate in a third college year and blaze a trail to the WNBA were out the window, as were any hopes of making Australian coach Sandy Brondello’s squad for the Tokyo Games.

Then, with her final surgeries complete and a clean bill of health declared in January, the coronavirus spread to the United States.

With the university shut down an at-risk Mangakahia, who turned 25 in April, was given two hours to pack her things and fly home to the sleepy Brisbane bayside suburb of Victoria Point.

It is there she has slowly built up her strength and endurance ahead of what will be an emotional return to Syracuse later this year.

“I can’t believe I got through it. Oh my gosh, there was just so much that went on,” she said. “When I look back I just feel blessed because of the doctors and everyone I’ve had in my corner — my coach, my teammates.

“Playing again felt like a long way away. I was like ‘what the heck, why did it have to happen now?’ But it all happens for a reason.”

Snubbed as a late second- or third-round pick in a mock WNBA draft a year ago — a big reason behind her original decision to play a third season — Mangakahia is projected to go in the first-round despite not setting foot on court since.