When freshman guard Adam Caporn stepped onto the campus at Saint Mary’s several days into the 2001-02 school year, his new teammates came from throughout the United States, France and even the Bahamas. But Caporn was the only Australian on the Gaels’ roster.

He wasn’t the first player from Down Under to find a home in the West Coast Conference. Paul Rogers and Axel Dench were significant players for Gonzaga in the 1990s. And there were others.

But Caporn’s move from Perth to Moraga triggered a basketball transformation at Saint Mary’s, where a stream of incoming talent including Daniel Kickert, Patty Mills, Matthew Dellavedova and Jock Landale helped head coach Randy Bennett build a consistent winner.

The Gaels no longer have the Australia/New Zealand market to themselves. This season alone, there are 30 student-athletes from those two countries on the rosters of West Coast Conference men’s and women’s basketball teams.

“I’m surprised by how big a deal it’s become. At the same time, I think it make sense,” said Caporn, now 43, an assistant coach with the NBA’s Washington Wizards and head coach of the Aussie Boomers national team. “It made a big difference in my life — the opportunity to go to Saint Mary’s, be coached by Randy Bennett. It still has a big impact on my life. I’m thankful for that and proud that other people have that opportunity.”

Ten of 12 schools feature at least one player from the two nations referred to as Oceania. Portland has seven, Saint Mary’s six, Oregon State five. Twenty-one of the players are women, nine are men.

Topping the bill among the women is Gonzaga center Lauren Whittaker, a redshirt freshman from Canterbury, New Zealand, who leads the West Coast Conference in both scoring and rebounding. On the men’s side, point guards Joshua Dent of Saint Mary’s and Joel Foxwell are young Australian stars on the rise.

So why and how has this mutually beneficial association between student-athletes from Down Under and the West Coast Conference thrived? There are several factors: 

Traveling to the U.S. West Coast from Australia or New Zealand is a long haul. A flight from Sydney to San Francisco is more than 13 hours in duration. But at least travelers can get a direct flight. That’s not the case from Sydney to New York, where flying time plus a layover means the trek will last more than 20 hours.

“The WCC is one of the best conferences for people in my situation because the flight home is super easy,” said Santa Clara’s Maia Jones, a junior guard from Tasman, New Zealand.

Caporn, who accepted a scholarship to Saint Mary’s without first making a campus visit, said proximity to his home — even at more than 9,000 miles — makes sense on several levels. 

“I think it probably helps that it’s in the West. The East Coast is further and the lifestyle is different,” he said. “It’s harder to connect with that. Closer, lifestyle, weather and the size of the schools, I think, is easier to digest.”

Bennett saw something he liked immediately after Caporn joined his program. That impression was reinforced a year later with the arrival of Kickert, who became the program’s all-time scoring leader until Dellavedova broke his record.

“The bottom line is they have great attitudes about teammates and are unselfish,” said Bennett, theorizing that the popular sports of rugby and Aussie Rules Football promote that approach. “It’s not about who gets the most points. It’s all about their team. When we got Caporn and then Kickert, it was like, these guys are different. We doubled down because that fits exactly what a player should be like.”

Portland women’s basketball head coach Michael Meek also has found recruiting success Down Under and his teams won three West Coast Conference tournament titles in his first six seasons. Because players from those countries are part of a club system that rewards development, they bring patience to the process.

“They understand it’s going to take some work. I think that’s really the maturity in general a lot of the international players just seem to have, almost a pro mentality,” he said. “The way they handle that seems to be really awesome. Like all athletes, they want to play, but they also have a maturity about it that really helps them grow and not necessarily get down about the process.”

Caporn said the only culture shock he experienced had to do with food — the bread and milk here tasted different. The basketball transition was an easier fit.

“My experience in international basketball is that people play to their culture. That’s how they succeed and the lens through which they see life and basketball,” he said. “For Australia, I think it’s a pretty easy observation to say that we are good at team sports and we really value looking after your teammates.

“We even have what we call Tall Poppy Syndrome. Standing out is not embraced. You’ve got to be humble. The sort of team-first thing is definitely real and I’d agree that football codes play a role in it. But I think it’s probably deeper than that. An island nation with humble beginnings, the climate’s harsh, the land’s hard. Our families that we come from are pretty blue collar. That’s definitely the team part.”

Jones, who averages 14.8 points for Santa Clara, comes from a basketball family in New Zealand. Her father, Phill Jones, was a member of the Tall Blacks national team for 14 years. Her mother, Kat, also played professionally. Younger brother Hayden is a freshman guard at Wisconsin.

“They’ve influenced the way I play immensely,” said Jones, who spent two years at Saint Mary’s before transferring this season to Santa Clara. Her father gave her an offensive mindset, but her mother — who coached her from youth basketball through high school — made sure she was the complete player that coaches covet. “My mom is more defense and hard work and I think I got that from her.”

James O’Donnell, a 6-10 sophomore center from Sydney, spent his freshman year at San Francisco before moving north to Portland before this season. He started the first 17 games for the Pilots before an illness and a slump landed him to a reserve role. Rather than pout, O’Donnell has excelled, averaging 12.4 points on 71-percent shooting since coming off the bench the past eight games.

“I think it was a really good decision because I’ve kind of embraced that role to be the juice, the energy off the bench,” said O’Donnell, who scored 16 points in the Pilots’ 87-80 upset of No. 6 Gonzaga on Wednesday. “That’s a big part of my identity now.”

O’Donnell initially signed with San Francisco in part because assistant coach Jay Duncan is Australian. At Portland, he was drawn to a program where he’d have three Aussie teammates and two coaching staff members from his native land. “It basically feels like I’m at home,” O’Donnell said. 

At Santa Clara, Jones said she has found a place that replicates the experiences she had at home. “Having a team I can play with and get along with, that’s always been a thing for me and my teammates at home in New Zealand,” she said. “A big thing is looking for a family. Just because of how far away it is for us to leave home, that’s a big thing. I love it here.”

When Meek got the job at Portland before the 2019-20 season, he inherited talented Australian point guard Haylee Andrews. Since then, his teams have been fueled by players from Down Under, including Emme Shearer, Lucy Cochrane and Keeley Frawley. None of them had a bigger impact than Alex Fowler.

A four-time all-conference selection and the Pilots’ Division I career scoring leader, Fowler has gone on to great post-collegiate success. She was the 2024 Rookie of the Year in Australia’s WNBL professional league and last summer was MVP at the Asia Cup, leading Australia to its first-ever championship in the event.

Just as the NBA success enjoyed by Patty Mills and Matthew Dellavedova has helped Saint Mary’s attract more Australians, Fowler is a touchstone for young Australian women with hoop dreams.

“It obviously doesn’t hurt our recruiting when you see somebody who wasn’t necessarily recruited super heavily out of high school who has grown so much as an all-around player,” Meek said. “People know who she is because of what she’s accomplished. And her ability to speak to what a great experience she had and how much she improved has really helped.”

Need more evidence? The top two scorers on this year’s Portland team are Dyani Ananiev from Australia and Florence Dallow of New Zealand. They just keep coming.