The West Coast Conference draws student-athletes from around the globe, so a lineup with an international flavor is routine. But the Santa Clara women’s basketball team not only features five Australians — four of them starters — but all five grew up in the same city.
“It’s honestly bizarre,” said junior forward Olivia Pollerd, one of five Santa Clara players from Melbourne. “The five of us have always known each other but none of us have been super-close friends. It just kind of happened that we all kind of came here. It’s so cool.”
Head coach Bill Carr didn’t set out to collect Aussies. He recruited sophomore guard Tess Heal and senior wing Lara Edmanson out of high school, but Pollerd is a transfer from Washington, graduate forward Keeley Frawley came from WCC rival Portland, and Jayde Cadee, a reserve senior guard, began her career at UC Irvine.
They form the nucleus of a Broncos’ team that takes a full head of steam into the conference schedule this week with a 12-3 record that matches the program record for most pre-conference wins, set in 1991. That team went 28-3 and won both WCC and WNIT championships.
Santa Clara owns road wins over Oregon and Arizona State, the first time it has beaten two Power 5 Conference opponents in the same year since 2015-16 and the first time it’s knocked off two Pac-12 foes since 1993-94.
It was during the 89-50 rout of the Ducks on Nov. 18 at Eugene when the five Aussies first all wound up on the court at the same time. “I never notice,” said Carr, confirming that it wasn’t part of a master plan. “When it happened the first couple times, I didn’t even know until someone pointed it out to me. But I think for them, it’s unique.”
“It actually works perfectly,” said Heal, the Broncos’ returning all-conference selection and WCC Freshman of the Year, who is averaging 17.5 points, 4.5 assists and converts 91 percent from the free throw line. “It’s a great lineup because there’s two really good shooters, two really good drivers and then a post player. It balances really nicely. It’s funny.”
The five Aussies actually knew of each other more from afar. They weren’t teammates, nor regular opponents back home. Melbourne has more than 5 million residents and Pollerd said the five were scattered around the city.
“It’s just bizarre that from a place you’ve lived your whole life, you end up on the other side of the world with four of them,” said Pollerd, who averages 14.5 points and 4.7 rebounds and leads the WCC with 41.3 percent accuracy from the 3-point arc.
When Pollerd was choosing an American university, she initially wasn’t eager to find a place with players from Down Under. “I just wanted to get an American experience,” she said. “I felt like I don’t need Australians around me. But it’s so lovely to have them on my team because being so far from home it just feels like a slice of home.
“We can talk about things that some of girls over here are like, `What are they talking about?’ We have our own little language and we get each other.”
Heal says America and Australia have a lot of similarities, but allows that there are a lot of differences as well. “It’s so nice to have people from home who just understand the differences and the challenges of being in a foreign place,” Heal said. “We were all brought up kind of the same way, especially basketball-wise. The same principles and terminology, so we’re all on the same page with how we play.”
All five Australians have made contributions to the Broncos’ early success. Edmanson provides 7.3 points, 3.6 rebounds and shoots better than 54 percent from the field. Frawley, in her first year with the program, averages 5.9 rebounds and “does a lot of the unnoticed things, brings a lot of energy,” Heal said. Cadee averages 5.6 points, with a pair of double-digit performances.
Rounding out the starting five is senior guard Ashley Hiraki, a San Jose native who is second on the team in assists and tops in steals. Sophomore guard Marya Hudgins, from Aurora, Colo., is big off the bench, averaging 9.9 points and a team-leading 7.8 rebounds.
A summer tour of Greece gave the Broncos a head start on the season, and allowed them to begin honing a tougher defensive mindset, Carr said. Santa Clara leads the WCC in scoring defense, surrendering just 53.6 points per game — nearly a seven-point improvement over last season during non-conference play. The Broncos also top the league in field-goal defense (37.3 percent) and rebounding margin (plus-7.6).
“The group has been really connected. Their mindset of one game at a time has been really good,” Carr said. “And we’re guarding better — I think that’s the key.”
Pollerd agrees. “There’s been so much growth since last year. We just have really good puzzle pieces. When game time comes, we just fit,” she said. “We’re really committed to our defense and our principles. That’s been a real pinnacle point for this team, how we defend.”
Carr calls Heal the hardest-working player he has coached, but she sees improvement everywhere. The team moves the ball more efficiently and shoots it well, she said, and on defense, is stronger individually and with their rotations.
“Huge difference (from last season),” Heal said, referring to the Broncos’ 15-17 record and seventh-place tie in the WCC a year ago. "It’s not at all the same team.”
The NCAA’s NET computer likes what the Broncos have done so far, ranking them at No. 61 nationally, second-highest among WCC teams, behind Gonzaga at No. 15.
Santa Clara opens WCC play Saturday at home against Pacific (8-5), with whom they shared the No. 3 spot in the preseason coaches poll. Then it’s on the road next week for games against Gonzaga (13-2) and Portland (8-6) — picked first and second.
Carr said the Zags, with a win over Stanford and ranked No. 18 in the AP Top-25, “have certainly put themselves at the top of the league.” But he also believes the road wins vs. Oregon and ASU strengthened his players’ belief they can go into a hostile arena and compete.
Heal puts no limits to what her team can achieve this year.
“I’d say the confidence is quite high,” Heal said. “We play Pacific on Saturday — we’re ready for them. I think this team can win the conference. Gonzaga’s very good, so that will definitely be a challenge. But the sky’s the limit, really.”