Lauren Jackson tips Sitaya Fagan and Zara Russell as next big stars in Australian women\u2019s basketball<\/p>\n
Australian junior basketballers Sitaya Fagan<\/a> and Zara Russell<\/a> have been given the highest of praise from The GOAT<\/a> ahead of the 2025-26 WNBL\u00a0season.<\/p>\n “It is such an exciting time for women’s basketball,” WNBA and WNBL champion Lauren Jackson<\/a> said.<\/p>\n “My top three future WNBL stars or people that I wanna look out for, I would say, everyone’s talking about Sitaya Fagan at the moment (and) Zara Russell.<\/p>\n “I watched her play in the NBL1 finals against Albury, she was incredible. I’m very excited to watch her develop.”<\/p>\n Fagan, 17, is one of the most sought after Class of 2026 Freshman<\/a> in Australian history. She received 26 US college offers and has now narrowed her choices to three: USC; Texas; and South Carolina.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a big decision,\u201d Fagan told basketball.com.au<\/a> earlier this year.<\/p>\n \u201cLouisville was my first official offer, and I was almost screaming. I was like no freaking way and then they just kept coming.<\/p>\n \u201cMy mum is a teacher<\/a>, so I’m big on 50-50 with basketball and education.<\/p>\n “Having offers from those top programs that are also top in education, it\u2019s just really good.\u201d<\/p>\n While Russell, a highly-rated 18-year-old, is considering offers from Cal Berkeley, Louisville, Ohio State, Oregon, Texas A&M, Utah, and Wake Forest.<\/p>\n “I can’t wait to go to college, it will be such a new experience and I get to play a different sort of game over there which will definitely expand my skillset,\u201d Russell told basketball.com.au<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI’ve been really lucky that I’ve got some good schools offering [scholarships].”<\/p>\n Jackson didn’t name a third player, opting to call out the “millions of kids” chasing their basketball dreams.<\/p>\n “With She Hoops, we get out and about and I see a lot of kids that are vying for the next CoA positions and scholarships,” she said.<\/p>\n “There are so many talented kids coming through, it is such an exciting time for women’s basketball and they all want it bad<\/p>\n “They want it so bad cause they can see it, so I I’m just gonna say there’s a million kids in that one spot because they’re all incredible.”<\/p>\n Both Fagan and Russell won silver with the Australian Gems<\/a> at the 2025 FIBA Under-19 Women’s World Cup in July.<\/p>\n World Cup Snapshots#8 Zara Russell<\/p>\n Date of Birth: June 23, 2007 Best Game: vs Canada (July 19, 2025 – Semi-Final)Minutes: 21Points: 14FG: 5\/8 (62.5%)3PT: 2\/5 (40.0%)FT: 3\/3 (100%)Rebounds: 0Assists: 1Steals: 0Blocks: 0Efficiency: 10Tournament snapshotAveraged 7.2 points per game across 6 appearances, ranking 56th in scoring.Efficient shooter: 53.1% FG, 50.0% on 2PT, and an impressive 60.0% from three.Limited rebounding impact with just 1.5 rebounds per game despite her size.Averaged 1 assist and 0.2 steals per game, with minimal defensive presence.Shot 50% from the free-throw line (3\/6 overall).Scored in double figures twice, including 14 points vs Canada and 12 vs Argentina.Best utilised as a floor spacer and scoring option, particularly from beyond the arc.#12 Sitaya Fagan<\/a><\/p>\n Date of Birth: March 24, 2008 Best Game: vs Hungary (July 18, 2025 – Quarter-Final)Minutes: 25Points: 9FG: 2\/4 (50.0%)3PT: 0\/2 (0.0%)FT: 5\/6 (83.3%)Rebounds: 8Assists: 2Steals: 4Blocks: 2Efficiency: 20Tournament snapshotAveraged 12.3 points, 5.8 rebounds (24th overall), and 1.3 assists across 6 games.Scored in double figures in 5 of 6 games, with a tournament-high 14 points vs Canada.Shot 44.3% from the field, 47.6% on 2PT FG, and 36.8% from three.Strong at the free-throw line, converting 86.7% (13\/15).Provided defensive impact with 1.3 steals and 1.0 blocks per game.Notably versatile: scored, rebounded, and defended well, particularly evident in her quarter-final all-round display.Logged consistent minutes (~24 per game), contributing on both ends of the floor throughout the tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lauren Jackson tips Sitaya Fagan and Zara Russell as next big stars in Australian women\u2019s basketball Australian junior…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194033,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-194032","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Height: 185 cm (6’1″)
Position: Forward
Club: Centre of Excellence (Australia)<\/p>\n
Height: 189 cm (6’2″)
Position: Forward
Club: Centre of Excellence (Australia)<\/p>\n