"A sense of readiness": Kennedy Kereama on the road to the WNBL25 grand final

The Bendigo Spirit head coach gives an insight into the focus and self-belief behind his team's juggernaut season.

Photo credit: Getty Images

On the eve of Bendigo Spirit’s first WNBL grand final appearance since 2015, Kennedy Kereama says his squad’s selflessness and lack of ego are among its strongest attributes.

Even a player as accomplished Kelsey Griffin – a three-time WNBL Grand Final MVP – was fine with taking a backseat in the offence and only getting two shots in Game 1 of the semi-final series against Sydney. “From my perspective, there was an acknowledgment that we need to find ‘KG’ more shots, but at no point did we have to have an emergency meeting about at,” he tells The Pick and Roll.

“All of us, especially the players, really appreciate seeing other people succeed. As long as we're winning, we don't care where we get the points from or who's doing the jobs defensively, and I think that's the difference in perspective we have within our group.”

While Sydney came into that series huge outsiders and injuries largely forced them into small ball line-ups, Kereama says they caused some problems, particularly in Game 2, when they raced to a 31-23 at the first break.

“We were pretty clear on what we were doing defensively; I just thought the level of execution needed to tighten up,” he says of that Sydney run.

“For me, the messaging was very simple. We've been consistently either the number one or number two best defensive team for the season, so I backed us in to do what we needed to do. Sometimes you’ve just got to ride those waves of momentum and continue to force them into tough shots. That's the nature of basketball.”

Ultimately, Kereama says the unpredictable series was a useful learning experience for his team. “They were a difficult proposition because they had different starters in every single game we played them this year. We had a specific game plan for (Flames big Yemiyah) Morris, but we didn’t even see her on the court. The fact that we had to adapt our game plan throughout both games was probably much to our benefit, although it created some real headaches at the time.”

Arguably one of the most dominant WNBL teams seen in years, Kereama’s Spirit finished the season with an 18-3 record. Theirs is an unusually experienced playing group, with Sami Whitcomb, Kelsey Griffin and Marianna Tolo all seasoned veterans and Kelly Wilson the league’s all-time leader in games played. Did having so much experience on board impact how Kereama coached the team?

“It probably doesn't change much from a philosophical standpoint or how I coach,” Kereama says. “The difference is probably that you can give an experienced group a lot more line to run with. They have seen a lot of basketball, and it becomes a lot more of a collaborative approach to what we're doing.

“No matter what team I'm involved with, I really try to involve players in decision making, especially leadership group players. But you still have to do all the planning and game-time management, you still have to manage relationships.”

“Business as usual”: preparing for the season decider

Townsville Fire conceded the fewest points of any team in WNBL25 and will enter the grand final series with real momentum after easily accounting for the Perth Lynx. Still, Kereama says his team won’t go overboard with focusing on their opponents.

“The addition of Nia Coffey has to some extent has changed what they do, and Shannon (Seebohm) has implemented some new wrinkles for them, but I’ll back in the consistency of our roster and how we’ve gone about playing against that any day. From our perspective, it's business as usual.”

The one tweak Kereama may make to his team’s preparation is to focus more on video than court time. “The reality is, no extra amount of hard training right now is going to make a difference,” he reasons. “It will be those small change-ups and being very good at knowing what we do well, and I think we’ve been consistent in doing what we do well.”

With the team having secured their place in the post-season long ago, did Kereama weigh up resting players before the finals? “It’s a good question. This is certainly not me throwing darts at any opposition teams because it’s easy to cast judgement when you’re not at every training session, but I think we’ve managed our crew relatively well. There are some teams out there where people play 40 minutes every game.”

“We've tried to manage some players and a lot of that is guided by my medical performance team, but we haven't had anyone play a ridiculous amount of minutes this year who isn't capable of playing big minutes. Sami (Whitcomb), for example, has an engine that can play big minutes, and that’s one reason why she’s the MVP.

“We’re not Gregg Popovich and the Spurs where we can win just enough games and load manage and have our crew ready to go for finals, though it’s always a consideration in the back of my mind to manage minutes here or there. For example, Casey (Samuels) missed the last regular season game, but she would have played if it was a final. Our medical and performance team and the players themselves have done an exceptional job of being physically ready and prepared for the entire season.”

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“On call 24/7”: the work ethic behind the finals run

Kereama says having such an accomplished roster spurred him to work even harder. While sometimes he would like to be playing a round of golf or relaxing with a fishing rod, he has had barely a moment of downtime this season as he vies to guide the Spirit to their third championship.

“I’m on call 24/7, and outside the standard team training hours, we’re doing extra individual sessions or video with players. We make a commitment here to help people get better and to be at the top of my game, I honestly feel like every resource of my time needs to be used to try and find that extra one per cent advantage. A lot of my spare time is spent watching basketball.

“Like every other coach, we work our asses off for the standard women’s coach wages. The one thing I’ve enjoyed the most in working with this group is having that much experience and the high level of expectation. I think it’s put us in a great position for finals because we've always held ourselves to an incredibly high standard.

“Whether you subscribe to grand final pressure or not - and I certainly don't - because we've been under our own pressure all year, everything we've done to this point has put us right where we want to be. I feel a sense of readiness.”