Dunking teen adds special talent to Townsville Fire arsenal Zitina set to slam WNBL
SHE’S already the first female basketballer to dunk at an Olympics, but Elizabeth Cambage may have a young rival to create WNBL history after the Townsville Fire announced the signing of excitement machine Zitina Aokuso.
Footage of the 18- year- old dunking when at the Basketball Australia Centre of Excel- lence in Canberra went viral last year, and Fire coach Claudia Brassard has given her the green light to repeat the dose in the WNBL.
“That would be exciting. I just want to see her do it on Suzy ( Batkovic, Fire captain) at training, actually,” Brassard laughed.
“It’s phenomenal to be able to dunk the ball when you’re a young girl, it shows how much promise she has. I’ve never had a player who’s been able to do that before, so why not? If you’ve got the ability to do it, then show it off.”
Cambage became the first female to dunk at London in 2012, and the 25- year- old returns to the WNBL after a lengthy absence with Melbourne Boomers next season.
Aokuso is a relative latecomer to the sport but her development should be fasttracked by learning from Australian Opals bigs Batkovic and Cayla George at the Fire.
“She’s very athletically gifted and a latecomer to basketball so I think the ceiling is really high,” Brassard said.
“There’s no better ‘ bigs’ to learn from than Cayla and Suzy, hopefully it will take her game to the next level.
“Because she’s a latecomer to basketball there’s a lot of offensive skills she can work on, and certainly we’ll work really hard with her on her shooting.
“She relies on her athletic ability to jump and get after it and she plays really hard.
“That combination is going to make for a promising player.
“Most of the COE kids tend to go to college in the States, fortunately she was one who decided to stay here.
“She was getting looked at by some other teams so it was nice she wanted to come home to Queensland.”
Aokuso’s signing brings the Fire’s confirmed squad for the 2016- 17 season to eight, and the two- time champions still have both import spots open.
Brassard said they would recruit at least one import, before making a decision on who filled the last spot.
“Certainly one of them ( will be an import) and then we might wait and see for the last one,” she said.