Young gun Adele headed Stateside for college tour

Manjimup basketballer Adele East has been selected to attend a USA College Tour with Aussie Prospects later this year.

The tour will take place from June 26-July 22.

Adele is one of 10 players, of which there are six from WA.

Aussie Prospects provides elite Australian basketball players with opportunities to showcase their talent and gain exposure to the elite US basketball system.

Since the introduction of an Aussie Prospects invitational tournament for girls, Adele has represented Aussie Prospects in 2018 and 2019.

She also went to Melbourne with Aussie Prospects last January with the first Aussie Prospects women’s team that competed in the U21 tournament, with a team of 10 players from WA undefeated and winning the grand final.

Adele was also named 2019 Aussie Prospects WA Invitational defensive player of the tournament.

She thanked her parents Anthony and Natasha East for their continued support over the years.

“I’d also like to thank Peter Harper, who was my first U16s WA State coach when I was 13, and he encouraged me to play State Basketball League and to continue with basketball,” she said.

“I also want to thank my current SBL coach Nathan Grover for believing in me and for giving me the confidence to play at a high level.

“And to the Manjimup Basketball Association, in particular Paula Della Franca, for the constant support over the last seven years since I was a junior first starting out.” Adele said she was looking forward to the tour, including the three-day training camp in Melbourne before flying out to Los Angeles.

Manjimup Amateur Basketball Association junior co-ordinator Paula Della Franca wished Adele all the best for her trip and said the association was extremely proud of her.

“We have been very supportive of our junior players over the years, and especially those players that worked very hard to get where they are now,” she said.

“We will continue to support them on and off the court wherever we can as they are all great kids with great work ethics.

“Adele will be very busy with her teammates as they are going to be training and playing a minimum of 12-16 games throughout the tour.

“They will be playing against high-level teams with very talented athletes also vying for US college expo-sure.

“I just think that it’s awe-some that in such a small asso-ciation as ours we have been able to produce junior players who have gone on to achieve great things at a young age and have been able to maintain their country kid attitudes and stay humble and are grateful, especially to their parents who do give up a lot of their time and money to help them achieve their goals.”