UB women's basketball team leads MAC in internationalism

Reprinted from At Buffalo

Coming to Alumni Arena this win­ter: the International Basketball Federation World Tour!

Not really, but it might seem that way given the roster of the UB women’s basketball team. With seven players from outside the country, UB has more international players than any other women’s basketball team in the Mid-American Conference. Toledo is second with four players from abroad. By contrast, Central Michigan’s roster is composed mostly of athletes from that state, minus one from Indiana.

UB’s roster also includes players from California, Kansas and Mississippi. Sophomore Cassie Oursler of Grand Island is the lone Western New Yorker. “We’ve kind of gone crazy with this overseas thing,” laughs sophomore guard Liisa Ups, one of four Austra­lians on the team. “It would be cool to see on a map.”

Ups came to Buffalo in 2014 with her twin sister, Katherine, a guard for the Bulls. “I’m so lucky to get to come overseas,” Liisa Ups says. “I’m doing stuff that when I was 12 I never would have dreamed of.”

Also on the roster are Courtney Wilkins and Stepha­nie Reid from Australia, Tamara Brcina from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ayoleka Sodade from Canada and Mirte Scheper from the Netherlands. How do all these international players end up in Buffalo? UB’s reputation for globalism helps.

“The whole world is here,” says Bulls fourth-year head coach Felisha Legette-Jack, who guided UB to its second-ever MAC Tournament semifinal appearance last season. “It’s easy to recruit to Buffalo because our international numbers are among the best in the country.”

Bulls assistant coach Cherie Cordoba, a native of Aus­tralia and former pro who was Legette-Jack’s assistant at Hofstra and Indiana, helped recruit the Ups twins and Scheper, a highly touted 6-foot-4 freshman who played in the Netherlands’ national development program.

“It’s all very new,” says Scheper, who arrived in Buffalo at the end of August. “In the Netherlands, we have different shops for everything. Here, you can pretty much buy everything in one store.”

If you’re wondering whether the program shies away from mentioning the “s” word to interna­tional recruits from warmer climes, look no further than the T-shirts the players wear. They read: “UB women’s basketball. It’s a different kind of cool,” with icicles hanging off the word “cool.”

“We’re em­bracing who we are,” Legette-Jack says. “What’s not to like about Buffalo? Once you see it, it’s like, wow, this is a cool place.”

While the Bulls’ international flavor provides an intriguing dynamic in the locker room and dur­ing team activities, how the team meshes on the court may take some time to develop. That’s OK with Legette-Jack.

“What really gets my juices flowing is the raw­ness, the unknown — not knowing who’s going to emerge,” she explains. “I like the pieces with this group. They have size. They have swagger. They’re mentally tough. If they stay, if they keep believing, this team will be in the Sweet 16 in a few years.”

Now that would be something to write home about.