It’s a small, by Spanish standards, town in Galicia yet it has become the focal point for Irish basketball. Claire Melia and her amazing run with Baxi Ferrol in Eurocup Women will have a lengthy impact on the sport here no matter what comes next.
It’s a big sign that nobody is sick of talking about this yet. It’s a bigger sign that the drip feed of messages from non-basketball friends is still coming through. Claire Melia had already made history before she stepped on the floor with Baxi Ferrol last Thursday. The impact of her extraordinary performance in the first leg of the Eurocup Women semi-final will go far beyond that one night.
The drip
Ireland isn’t really known for its basketball heritage. Justified or not, that’s what Irish basketball has to deal with across the board. There’s a strong player base but that’s only part of the process in developing top tier talent.
Having shining beacons of success to point to really helps. Everyone in Irish basketball knew that Claire Melia was really good before this season. Everyone involved in Baxi Ferrol, especially coach Lino Lopez, knew she was great before Thursday night.
Few people in either camp were at the local primary school confirmation ceremonies in Monasterevin this past Saturday. My mother was because of my nephew. When I visited Ma on Sunday, she was asking me all about it. The reason being that it was the talk of the town when she went there. It is, of course, much more than that.
A Cinderella run for Baxi Ferrol
As I’ve previously mentioned, this run in Eurocup Women for Baxi Ferrol is like Cinderella brought a sledgehammer to the ball. Lino Lopez had tried to recruit Claire Melia before this season. When he finally snared her, he still had to prove it was worth backing an Irish basketball player.
Baxi Ferrol have since recorded a win over Galatasaray, winners of Euroleague Women in 2014 and two time Eurocup Women champions. Then, along the way through the playoffs, they took out the top overall seed in Hun-Therm. The Dinamo Sassari side they dispatched in the quarter finals are used to going deep in European competition. The Sardinians were no match for the debutants of Baxi Ferrol.
This all led to last Thursday. Asvel have two French league titles and won Eurocup Women in 2023. They also have two players likely to be drafted in the WNBA, in the form of Dominique Malonga and Juste Jocyte. By any reasonable measure, it was a hammering with Claire Melia to the fore.
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Pointing at things
If Claire Melia was from, say, Belgium, this wouldn’t be as big a deal. That’s because the Cats, who are reigning EuroBasket Women champions, already had their breakthrough moments they needed. These came in the multiple outings by Emma Messeman in particular, pointing the way for other young Belgian ballers.
Irish basketball hasn’t really had that. Pat Burke is the easy comparison to make here. Burke’s biggest success, with Panathinaikos, came when watching continental basketball was impossible outside of going in-person for Irish people. His NBA feats, while a key piece of history, never had him as a featured player.
Claire Melia is a star for Baxi Ferrol and people in Ireland can watch them. Eurocup Women is on YouTube, that’s a big deal for visibility. Added to this, she came through the Irish club system. It’s a homegrown talent, who played almost all her basketball in the Irish system. That’s relatable for young people here and the future of the sport. Claire Melia’s game last Thursday is something to point at and aspire to.
It’s much the same as hundreds of youngsters from Mayo showed up at the Ireland international against Latvia in February. Hazel Finn is from Mayo and there she was playing in a EuroBasket qualifier. Kids in Mayo could relate to what she was doing and seek to match it.
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What comes next?
The immediate future for Baxi Ferrol is that an awful lot of Irish basketball fans will be tuning in on Thursday. A 31 point lead is far from a certainty in aggregate play. Still, those fingers will go to YouTube and click because Claire Melia is playing.
Should Melia and Ferrol progress, well then things change for me too. I’m going to have to rearrange my budget for the month (the joys of self-employment) and book some flights. The virtue of self-employment is that I can do my job from near anywhere. There will still be travel plans plus accreditations to sort. These are all fun problems.
As for the sport in Ireland? Last Thursday was big but every step from here is bigger. You grow a sport by creating stars and moments. The stars bring relatability and the moments are what you aspire to match or surpass. It’s a virtuous circle so long as you keep feeding the machine. A Eurocup Women final? A title? Those were wild dreams for Baxi Ferrol this past August. Now, for the town of Ferrol and the basketball community in Ireland, they’re becoming tangible.
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