At the 2015 SEABL MVP Lunch held in Albert Park today, the Most Valuable Players, Youth Players of the Year, Defensive Players of the Year, Coaches of the Year, Referees of the Year and the All-SEABL teams were announced.
Taking out the men’s MVP was Daequon Montreal after he finished second in scoring for the season with 23.9 a game.
He was a proven threat inside and outside, leading the league with 135 made free-throws as his ability to draw fouls on drives to the basket bamboozled many teams while he also nailed 53 three-pointers (5th in the league).
Scoring in double-figures in every match, he helped take Dandenong to a fifth straight playoff appearance while scoring 25+ in each of his final five games in the regular season.
Steph Cumming earned the MVP in the women’s competition, leading an accomplished Kilsyth Lady Cobras to the Grand Final. In a team of offensive stars, Cumming stood out with a team-high 21.1 points per game and a league-high 88% shooting from the free throw line on 400+ attempts.
In her sixth SEABL season, Cumming has now averaged 20+ points for three straight years and she never dropped below 15 points a game throughout the 2015 season. Her 2.7 assists per game also proves her team-first mentality and a second placed finish in the Defensive Player of the Year category showcases her complete game at both ends of the floor.
Winning a second consecutive Australian Youth Player of the Year award, Kyle Adnam has proven himself as one of SEABL’s most damaging point guards at just 21 years of age.
He improved on last year’s point production by two as well as his three-point shooting by 8% and free throw-shooting by 9%. A buzzer-beater to help Kilsyth beat Sandringham in Round 12 provided one of the highlights of the season.
Still just a teenager, Abbey Wehrung’s Youth Player of the Year award looks to be the first of many accolades for the guard as she rises through the ranks of Australian basketball.
A scoring machine, she scored 20+ seven times in 18 games, hitting 35% from downtown for the fifth most amount of three-pointers in the league. At 178cm, Wehrung also defies her position as point guard with 5.7 rebounds per game.
With 23 more blocks than any other player at the end of the regular season, Damian Johnson has gone on to crack the century mark in rejections to win Defensive Player of the Year. In addition to 100 blocks, he also collected 63 steals at an average of 2.4 a game.
His work in the paint helped Mt. Gambier to the second best defence in the league, allowing 74 points per game while holding oppositions to 3% less than the season average in field goal shooting.
Dominating the glass like no other player, Mikaela Ruef earned the women’s Defensive Player of the Year award with 15 boards a game while collecting 28 more defensive rebounds than anyone else.
She was a big part of Launceston returning to the playoffs for the first time since 2010, collecting a double-double in every match bar one for the season. In a spectacular second half of the year, Ruef finished with four 20+ rebound games.
Find a full list of all the winners below:
SEABL MVP: Daequon Montreal and Steph Cumming
SEABL Youth Player of the Year: Kyle Adnam and Abbey Wehrung
SEABL Defensive Player of the Year: Damian Johnson and Mikaela Ruef
SEABL Coaches of the Year: Richard Hill and Larissa Anderson
SEABL Referees of the Year: Jon Chapman and Melissa Andreola
SEABL Club of the Year: N-W Tasmania
All-SEABL Women’s Team: Sara Blicavs, Kelly Bowen, Steph Cumming, Jacinta Kennedy, Mikaela Ruef, Kathleen Scheer, Brittany Smart, Steph Talbot, Alex Wilson and Kelly Wilson.
All-SEABL Men’s Team: Kyle Adnam, Roy Booker, Cory Dixon, Deba George, Brad Hill, Damian Johnson, Tony Lewis, Shane McDonald, Daequon Montreal and Donte Nicholas.
In the spirit of reconciliation Basketball Australia acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.