Growing up in Melbourne, Australia, Portland point guard Joel Foxwell experienced the ups and downs of most young players. At 16, playing for the Bulleen Boomers junior program, Foxwell was elevated to their top team but rarely got on the floor during games and sometimes wondered if he was good enough.

Foxwell says he was able to overcome those doubts, thanks to his family. During Australia’s lockdowns for COVID, Foxwell, along with his two brothers and his father, would play nightly in the family’s backyard.

“Without them, I wouldn’t be the player I am, the person I am. Mainly, during COVID was when we kind of moved a step above our peers,” Foxwell recalled. “It was me and my dad in the backyard vs. my older brother and my younger brother. We’d be out there three hours playing against each other. 

“Then we’d come inside and mom would have cooked up an unreal dinner. It was perfect. My whole family has just been so important to me through all my years. I can’t thank them enough.”

Foxwell’s father played ball when he was younger and both older brother Owen and younger sibling Austin are part of the South East Melbourne Phoenix professional club. 

Now 20, Joel Foxwell is playing with skill and confidence for the Pilots. He is the team’s scoring leader at 14.6 points per game and he tops all Division I freshmen in assists (137) and assists per game (7.2). He is third and fifth in those categories among all players nationwide.

Foxwell has twice logged games of 15 assists to tie the Pilots’ program record, including as part of a 20-point performance against Santa Clara. He has won or shared West Coast Conference Freshman of the Week honors five times already this season.

“He’s playing unbelievable,” said Pilots head coach Shantay Legans, alluding to Foxwell’s six-game conference-game numbers of 18.2 points and 7.5 assists. “I knew he’d be good, but not this good right now.”

After an 0-4 start to conference play that included three games where the Pilots couldn’t close the deal after holding second-half leads, Foxwell and his teammates got over the hump last week. They scored wins over Pacific and Oregon State, inching close to .500 at 9-10 overall.

Their 90-89 overtime win vs. Pacific, which snapped a six-game losing streak, was a remarkable effort. The Pilots trailed 86-81 with time winding down in the extra period when Foxwell made a 3-pointer with 16.9 seconds left. Pacific answered by converting two free throws to make it 88-84 before Foxwell fed Matus Hronsky for a 3-point basket that closed the gap to one point with 10 seconds to play.

Hronsky, a 6-foot-8 forward from Slovakia, had made just 2 of 19 shots from beyond the arc in the previous five games. But Foxwell never lost confidence in his teammate. After Pacific made another free throw for an 89-87 lead, Foxwell found Hronsky in the left corner and the Duquesne transfer drilled the game-winning 3-pointer with four seconds left.

“It was just awesome to see Matus find some confidence and play a really good game,” he said of his teammate, who matched his 27 points and hit 6 of 9 shots from 3-point range. “The win was great but it was also great to see my shooter back. He was all smiles. It was a pretty wild 17 seconds.”

The Pilots play Wednesday at Pepperdine (5-14, 0-6) and Saturday at LMU (11-8, 2-4), hoping to find their first road win of the season. Foxwell said the impact of two wins last week was “massive” and he expects it to have carryover effect going forward. “The belief in our group has gone to a whole other level now that we can beat some solid teams,” he said.

Legans said the Pilots have been playing good ball, just not finishing games. They led by eight points with less than 10 minutes left vs. Washington State. The Pilots were up by six with 10 minutes to go against Santa Clara and were tied inside the final minute. At San Francisco, they led by 12 points early in the second half, fell behind by 13 but were within two points with than a minute left.

Portland lost all three, but the Pacific win changed things. “We need to breathe confidence into our kids as much as possible,” Legans said. “When they see what we’re doing works in the game, when they see if you battle you can win a game, it gives you some confidence.

“We made some big shots at the end of that game. We’ve had those shots but we’ve been missing them,” he said, adding that the two wins last week “can change the momentum of a season.”

For Foxwell, who says he’s probably a shade under 6-1 and about 175 pounds, the adjustment to playing Division I basketball has gone about as well as could be expected. 

“It’s definitely a whole other level. But I’ve just improved quickly since I’ve gotten here and gotten used to the pace of the game. I don’t think I’ve been struggling with it that much.” he said. “But at the same time, there’s times in our game where I feel a little bit lost, where I can’t get anything to go or I’m getting locked up by someone. They’re bigger boys, obviously, and more physical.”

Foxwell originally committed to play at Samford University, a Southern Conference school in the suburbs of Birmingham, Alabama. But when coach Bucky McMillan landed the job at Texas A&M after guiding the Bulldogs to the 2025 NCAA Tournament, Foxwell re-opened his recruiting.

The Pilots got wind of the change and Legans immediately flew to Melbourne for a visit. “It took me about two minutes to say this guy is really, really, really good,” Legans said.

Foxwell had most recently been a development player for Melbourne United of the NBL, Australia’s top pro league. That gave him the chance to practice against three former Saint Mary’s players, including Tanner Krebs and Kyle Bowen.

The other one was Matthew Dellavedova, now 35 and still playing professional ball back home. An Olympian and former NBA champion with LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, Dellavedova and fellow Saint Mary’s alum Patty Mills are Australian hoops “royalty,” Foxwell said.

“I got to share two seasons with Delly, which was really cool. I got to learn everything just from asking Delly questions,” he said. “As an 18-year-old, every kid wants to meet Delly and I got to go up against him in practice.”

All of those experiences — playing with his dad and brothers in the backyard and later measuring himself in practice against Dellavedova in a professional environment — have created self-belief in Foxwell that wasn’t always there.

“He came in with a confidence about himself. That’s something that was instilled in him at a young age,” Legans said. “He’s one of the hardest workers we have. It’s been fun watching him go out there and play with confidence. It doesn’t matter who he’s going up against.”