Hoopsters turn globetrotters
Stammberger, Provo bond after game in Italy
If they consider basketball resumes next summer when they’re choosing up sides for girls scrimmages at Studley Gym in Halifax, the team captains will surely be Tessa Stammberger and Daneesha Provo. Provo, a Dartmouth native, is playing big time university basketball at the University of Utah and Stammberger, a Kensington native who played her high school and university ball in Halifax, has embarked on a pro career in her native Germany.
Earlier this month, the two met in a tournament in Italy. “She was surprised to see me there,” Stammberger said of Provo. “I knew I’d see her because I knew she played for Utah, and we got to talk a little bit after the game. They were going to Venice the next day, travelling around Italy a little bit more than we were, so I was asking her about what other games they were playing and what they were doing in Italy. She looked good, got a lot of rebounds against us. She was playing well.” Stammberger played five years at Dalhousie before taking a year off to get an education degree. She signed with TK Hannover, which plays in the first division of the Bundesliga and is close enough to the family home in Bonn that her father delivered her bicycle by train to the apartment she shares with a teammate. The team had a short training camp before departing for a 13-day trip to Italy for a tournament with NCAA Division 1 teams.
“It still feels like summer, but I think once we get into the season, with games and practices, then it’ll feel a bit weird not going to class and studying,” she said. “This week is the first week when we’ll have our normal routine of weights in the morning and practice in the
evening. Before Italy, we were just getting into it.”
The third youngest member of her team at 24, Stammberger said some of her teammates are faster than her, though she won the team’s fitness testing. “They’re more experienced playing at this level. The basketball knowledge, that’s where I feel like I’m a little below them. But in terms of fitness, I feel OK,” said Stammberger, who is playing mostly on the wing, averaging eight to 12 minutes per game during the trip to Italy.
“I’m the kind of person that’s very careful and I want to do things right. That hinders me a little bit from just playing and you can see that’s how I’ve played, getting used to all the new situations and stuff.
“A few weeks ago it was kind
of overwhelming. I was trying to take it in stride and it was a little tough, but now I feel a lot more secure about what to do and how to play.”
TK Hannover went 4-2 in competition against the U.S. universities.
“They’re super athletic and obviously very good and the teams are very sound,” said Stammberger, who had been to the Italian alps with her family, but not to Rome or Tuscany before. “It was awesome. Rome was amazing, so much history, so many old buildings. It was beautiful and very hot. The food was very good, too, and there was a lot of it.”
TK Hannover and Utah met in Tuscany, with the PAC-12 school recording a 53-42 win, the Utes’ only close game of their tour.
“It’s a lot more physical, they didn’t call as many fouls as I’m used to. They let a lot more go, and you could tell the coaches from the States were pretty shocked,” Stammberger said. Even for a German native, there are adjustments to the pro life. This week, all the rookies on the team got a thorough examination by an osteopath. And after eating elaborately in Italy, Stammberger is back to a diet heavy on potatoes and pureed spinach.
“And the bread here is definitely better,” she said.
For Utah, it was quickly evident they weren’t going to be severely tested so they could concentrate on the cultural aspects of the trip.
“I’m not trying to be disrespectful or anything, but the competition wasn’t that good,” said Provo, who has represented Canada at various levels, and has played in 11 countries. “Italy is one of my top three places to visit, just because I like the culture, the buildings, the history, just the sightseeing and the history were the biggest reasons I had so much fun there.”
But she didn’t know she’d be playing against Stammberger until the teams took the floor. “Because her mom (Anna) is the Dal coach, they have runs at Studley and she would always invite me, so I play when I’m home in the summer and I always see (Tessa) there, which is pretty cool,” said Provo. “She’s so nice, and it was so weird to see her in Italy, of all places.”
Speaking after a team conditioning session on the Salt Lake City campus, Provo said she expects to play a significant role for the Utes this season.
“It’s going to be way different this year, considering we have a lot of height. Also, with me being an upperclassman, a junior, knowing the system and being able to provide leadership for my team,” she said, adding her goal for a squad that went 16-15 last year, but only 5-13 in conference is to win “way more games.”