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Writing basketball history in Africa is becoming routine for Liz Mills

18/Jan/24 12:00
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Bringing Bangui Sporting Club to the BAL for the first time, the Australian head coach Liz Mills has written just another chapter of a legendary basketball career in Africa

By Cesare Milanti / info@eurohoops.net

Between the end of the 90s and the beginning of the new century, the Australian female basketball landscape was pretty much dominated by two sides in different cities. One is Sydney, where the Panthers – then renamed Uni Flames – were taking the spotlight; the other was Canberra, where Carrie Graf began a long-time history on the Capitals’ bench, inspiring tons of viewers and devoted fans on their couches.

The Mills family was located in the first of the two mentioned cities, with the two young identical twins growing up in a very active family, at least sporting-wise. Basketball came across around the age of 10, and one of those iconic clashes between the Sydney Uni Flames and Carrie Graf’s Canberra Capitals got the identical twins Liz and Vik to fall in love with the game.

Playing it came as a natural consequence, and moving from the court to the bench was the successive result, trying to emulate the tons of great female head coaches within their home country. The already mentioned Carrie Graf, of course, and FIBA Hall of Famer Jan Stirling, who led the Adelaide Lightning to 12th straight WNBL Finals appearances.

Easy to understand why the young Liz Mills tried to follow their steps, isn’t it? “I saw them match up on the sidelines, and being extremely successful. Strong and intelligent women. I thought “I want to be like them when I grow up”. If I hadn’t seen those women in those positions, I probably never would have thought about coaching. It speaks to the value of role models, and why I take being a role model now so seriously”, she said in an exclusive interview with Eurohoops, looking back at her beginnings.

As she says, “representation matters”, and if she and her twin “hadn’t turned on the TV and started watching women’s basketball” they “may have never even started playing and then have coached”. Instead, they did so with junior boys and girls teams back home, when suddenly Africa became an option later on. Once again, triggered by another exciting experience. This time, not on their home’s couch.

Love at first sight with the African continent

Being passionate about politics, history, and obviously sports, after finishing university studies and growing on Australian sidelines, they both started an around-the-world trip. And the best place where to end it, combining all those passions, was the African continent. Falling in love with Zambia in 2008, they kept going back and forth to this country, living either there or in South Africa.

In 2011, the proposal of coming to Zambia’s men’s National League opening tournament arrived. From then on, Liz Mills never left Africa, making history and establishing herself as one of the most-followed basketball figures within the second-largest continent on earth, but not yet acknowledged enough by media platforms, players, coaches, or behind-the-scene persons in the global basketball landscape.

She was always told, as a woman in this kind of sporting world, that she would never be able to coach men’s basketball. Liz Mills, just like many other women living basketball on the sideline, would have never had the opportunity to coach senior or non-women teams. Instead, she quickly found out she could have coached in that league. Approaching one of the teams’ club presidents, he didn’t see her only as a female coach: she was an expert coming from Australia, eager to get an opportunity.

That came right after her first court experience in Zambia, coaching straight away the country’s senior men’s national league team Heroes Play United in the 2011-12 season. They hadn’t won a title in eight years, but with Liz Mills sitting on the bench, the Zambia Basketball League honors came as a consequence. From then on, she has also coached in Cameroon, Rwanda, Kenya, Morocco, Ivory Coast, and the Central African Republic.

13 years in the making, she has seen it all. “I’ve worked with national and club teams in seven different countries. The development of the game over the last decade has been so inspiring. I’m so proud of the development of the BAL [Basketball Africa League, founded in 2019] in particular and the national teams continue to get better and better in this space too, with more investment, and more development at the junior level”, Liz Mills shared about the development of basketball in Africa.

For the first time in history, all the African participants at the last 2023 FIBA World Cup [Egypt, South Sudan, Angola, Ivory Coast, Cape Verde] got at least one victory during the campaign, proving they could compete against better teams on paper. Two of them [South Sudan and Cape Verde] were debutants. “We’re starting to see the next generation of African basketball players shine, be that in the BAL, the NBA Africa Academy, and in Europe. And in the West, we’re getting more African plays in the college system, in academies, in European basketball. That speaks to the growth and development of the game over the last 10-12 years”, she added.

However, the stereotype regarding the African continent being considered a whole unity without taking into account the thousands of shades – whether they’re big or thin – between every country is still a thing. “There are 54 countries here and they are very different. Spain is vastly different from Germany, just like Angola is very different from Egypt, or Tunisia is different from Nigeria. Playing styles across the continent are very different as well. I would love to see, especially Europeans educate themselves more concerning the different countries and how they play basketball”, Liz Mills pointed out.

With the rise of the Basketball Africa League – recently reached by Bangui Sporting Club by winning the Road to BAL with none other than the Australian head coach on board, “focusing on defense” as she revealed to ESPN -, this could eventually put the exposure for African teams to the next level, bringing in more spectators, fans, players, and coaches: more awareness and interest towards African basketball instead of “putting a paintbrush across the whole continent and saying it’s just Africa”, Liz Mills said.

South Sudan’s miracle could change the narration

Liz Mills has been writing history in African basketball, and that’s proven. She was the first woman to coach a club team in Morocco [AS Salé] and the Arab world, the first female head coach in the Basketball Africa League with the same club, and most importantly the Kenya men’s national team at AfroBasket 2021. That was a real miracle, qualifying the nation for the first continental championship in 28 years by beating 11-time AfroBasket champions of Angola, which Kenya had never beaten before.

Talking about miracles, at the 2023 FIBA World Cup the debutants of South Sudan qualified for the Olympic Games in Paris by being the best-classified African team in the competition. The South Sudanese Basketball Federation was only a utopia a few years ago, considering that the recognized unification of the country came in 2011 after decades of civil and bloody war.

Moreover, after officially getting to the Olympic stage, South Sudan’s head coach Royal Ivey pointed out that they were “practicing outside with eagles flying around”, playing on “flooded courts” ahead of the big International appointment in Manila. “He’s hitting a poignant note in regards to infrastructure across the continent and this is something that is being tackled in every single country. I do know a majority of the basketball-loving countries, in Africa are developing indoor arenas, but a lot of the countries still have outdoor courts where you know you can’t”, Liz Mills first commented about it.

She continued on the same topic. “There might not be a basketball hoop on one of the courts or there’s a lack of basketballs indeed: you might have to train with one ball. When you’re training indoors, it’s 35 degrees and there’s no air conditioning. The infrastructure and the administration of basketball across the continent must be addressed”, Bangui Sporting Club’s current head coach added. Not only that but you kind of become multi-skilled when you coach in Africa as well. “You have to be able to adapt, you’ve got multiple hats. You could be a head coach and assistant coach, the team manager, the physio, the strength and conditioning coach”, Liz Mills underlined.

There might not be the right environments to play basketball, but life on those occasions turns into a training ground. “You test your skills not only as a coach but as a person, being able to get the most out of your team with limited support. It develops you not only as a coach but as a person, going back to your home country by understanding how privileged you are. I think a lot of coaches don’t understand how challenging it is to work in such conditions, not only in Africa but anywhere if the infrastructure is a major challenge”, she addressed giving the complete picture of the situation.

South Sudan took a major upside in the development of basketball within the country since when Luol Deng was appointed as the President of the Basketball Federation. They set their eyes on a growing process that would proceed step-by-step, and so they did: first AfroBasket, then the World Cup, and now the Olympic Games. All that with players who never got the opportunity to grow up in South Sudan, because it literally didn’t exist on the maps, and their families sought refuge in other countries to find some peace.

That involved Nuni Omot, Wenyen Gabriel, Sunday Dech, and all the others who contributed to the country’s biggest success sporting-wise since the independence. “Some of these players are refugees, growing up in Australia, America, or Europe. So it wasn’t by choice that they didn’t get to grow up in their own country. I would love to see the development of local places in South Sudan now that they’ve gained their independence. But there is still politics and instability in the region”, she said referring to a constant conflict that is taking part in the African Horn, also involving Sudan.

Liz Mills still has an optimistic view regarding the development of local talents in the African continent, starting from now. “I strongly believe that we’ll be able to see local talent developed”, she said addressing some of the countries that can have more political and socio-economical stability. “Senegal, Angola, Tunisia, Egypt: they are politically stable countries where players have been able to grow and develop their games there. They do represent African basketball because of that”, she added.

The Australian head coach has witnessed South Sudan’s unbelievable path to the Olympic Games – which will involve also a historically friendly game encounter in London against the United States – in first person. “In what I believe was 2017, I worked with some players in Australia who first played for South Sudan and put the national team in the Afrobasket Qualifiers, and this was before Lual Deng came on board as president”, she first said.

“South Sudan’s journey”, Liz Mills added, “is just been beautiful to witness, having understood the emotional and physical turmoil of these players having to be displaced growing up in refugee camps”. Whether it was Kenya, Egypt, Australia, or the United States, “for them to be able to play for South Sudan and put a whole country on their shoulders has been beautiful to watch. They’ve represented not only South Sudan but Africa with pride. I know across the continent they’ve got so many people who are behind them: we’re all excited to watch them participate in the Olympics and make Africa and South Sudan proud on the Olympic stage as well”, she commented.

Why Joel Embiid refusing Cameroon is problematic

Being a prominent figure in Africa for more than a decade now, Liz Mills has acknowledged the vast improvements in the game in her native country, Australia. “I have enjoyed seeing the NBL grow and develop over the years: it’s an immense amount of work investing into the sport, developing and extending the league in the last couple of years. They’ve done a great job in keeping home-grown talent there, and their marketing team is fabulous”, she said praising the Australian league.

The case of a projected first-round pick for the 2024 NBA Draft like the 18-year-old Alexandre Sarr playing for the Perth Wildcats is of no surprise to Liz Mills. “They’ve hyped the league so much up that you’ve got players from around the world coming to play for Rising Stars positions. It’s becoming a great pathway for the young talented players who don’t necessarily want to go through colleges or academies to start their career and then bounce off into the US or the EuroLeague”, she said.

However, her main focus remains on what comes around African basketball, and one of the main topics that had the spotlight recently regards Joel Embiid’s decision to represent the United States instead of France or, more importantly, his native country of Cameroon. Commenting on the Philadelphia 76ers center’s decision, Liz Mills described it as “very disappointing”. Frankly, it’s hard to disagree.

Asked to go deep in her opinion about Joel Embiid refusing Cameroon, the Australian head coach went back to South Sudan as an example. “It has been disappointing to see African players select other teams to play for. But I also do understand that the fundamental issue is the administration by federations of the sport across the continent. Look at what Luol Deng has done with South Sudan. When you can have a player of that caliber decide to come in and shift the entire narrative of a federation in a country, he has put the blueprint for other players to do the same”, she first said.

Touching more on the 2022-23 NBA MVP’s decision, she expressed her deep disappointment even more. “Not only do I think that if Joel [Embiid] had decided to play for Cameroon and put a Cameroon jersey on the impact that he would have had from a grassroots level would have been immeasurable; not only would he be representing representing Cameroon, but Africa, which has a population of 1 billion people, just the impact he could have had”, Liz Mills underlined.

“Being able to shine a spotlight on the continent and basketball in this region would have been immeasurable. Let’s not forget about Pascal Siakam”, she said about the upcoming Indiana Pacers player, who is yet to play officially for Cameroon – and it’s unknown if he will. “The more NBA players, the more European-based players we can get back playing in Africa and helping to develop the sport in their own countries and across the continent, the better”, the experienced head coach said.

“In terms of naturalization, it is a difficult subject because it’s an uneven playing field: in some countries, they don’t hand out passports for naturalized players. So you’re putting countries at a disadvantage. Until we get a fair playing field, the question mark of naturalized players is difficult”, she added. “African teams lack guards. Michael Roll was a naturalized player for Tunisia for almost a decade because they needed a shooting guard. DJ Strawberry and Jeremiah Hill have played for Cameron”, she said pointing out another problem. “You can’t get a passport from Kenya unless you have Kenyan blood, so there’s no option to have a naturalized”, Liz Mills addressed the issue.

And while Cameroon – despite not having Joel Embiid on board – could have the opportunity of reaching South Sudan in Paris by winning the FIBA OQT in Riga with Latvia, Brazil, Montenegro, Georgia, and the Philippines, Liz Mills believes there won’t be the opportunity for small African countries to be consistently able to display their talent at the biggest stage, leaving the biggest names out of the equation.

“I don’t think we’ll see some of those teams represent Africa again, I most definitely expect Senegal, especially Cameroon, Congo, Nigeria, and these teams to start coming back to the forefront”, she said before commenting on what’s happening with Nigeria, which entered a downfall after playing in the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. “It’s political instability at the federation level which has caused so much disharmony amongst that team, and it’s very disappointing”, she touched on such a powerhouse.

“Senegal is a team that has as much talent as South Sudan but has federation issues. If these things can be addressed, I expect to see Senegal and Nigeria back there. But until we see better administration of the sport across the continent… I do hope that these things can be handled because fundamentally I want the best African teams representing Africa at the World Cup and the Olympics. I do expect these teams to reassert themselves as we come around to AfroBasket Qualifiers”, Liz Mills added about the next big appointment when talking about African national team basketball, starting in February.

The perfect recipe doesn’t exist, but after experiencing so many things in Africa, the Australian head coach has some must-topics that need to be addressed when it comes to making some improvements and being more attractive globally basketball-wise. “I would say infrastructure. I would love to see the development of more indoor and outdoor courts, and that ties into an investment, more investment into the sport”, she first said, commenting on what’s needed politically as well.

“Fundamentally, we can’t continue to grow until we’ve got an administration that understands how to develop and grow the sport. I’m hoping that a new generation of administrators is going to start coming through, winning elections to become presidents of clubs and federations across the continent. Finally, I’d love to have more respect for African basketball. We’ve got so much talent, yet we don’t get the respect that we deserve. I hope that we do see that when people begin to educate themselves on the countries and the basketball here”, she concluded, rightfully calling for respect and recognition.

PHOTO CREDIT: Basketball Africa League Qualifiers

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