Isobel Borlase, Atlanta Dream draftee, joins WNBL Bendigo Spirit

On June 5, Borlase signed a one-year deal to join the Bendigo Spirit, the best possible place within Australia to make her WNBA aspirations a reality.

Spirit head coach Kennedy Kereama told The Next: “I’m obviously hoping we’ll keep Izzy for a long time, but the reality is we want we want her to go to the WNBA. We want her to be in our program for one year, then go to the WNBA and say, ‘hey, I loved the experience so much and I know that I can still get better,’ and she comes back to us again.”

Bendigo finished the 2024-25 regular season with an 18-3 record before going 4-0 in the postseason to capture the championship. Two players from their last campaign, Veronica Burton and Sami Whitcomb, have moved to Golden State and Phoenix for the WNBA season. Burton was selected to the All-WNBL second team, while Whitcomb had a clean sweep, making the All-WNBL first team while taking away both regular season and Finals MVP.

Kereama told The Next: “Sami is in a great situation, I went to visit her in Phoenix, she’s just in basketball heaven.” He added: “Veronica came here to work on different parts of the game and we really extended ourselves to ensure that we were able to facilitate everything she needed. Now look at her playing big minutes with a huge role in a new WNBA franchise playing great basketball. Some of those areas of her game that needed servicing have been serviced. It’s nice to know that perhaps we’ve facilitated some of that change for her.”

One area of improvement for Borlase’s game that both she and Kereama noted to The Next was her three point shooting. In the most previous WNBL season, Borlase shot just 22.3% from beyond the arc, in what was an obvious down year for the Adelaide Lightning. With ownership uncertainty lingering in the background, the Lightning really took a hit to their confidence, ending the season on a 7-14 record.

Borlase shared with The Next: “It’s really nice to to know what’s going on now. Sometimes it can be stressful, the unknown and not where not knowing where you’re going to end up. To get the deal done last week was really good. I’m happy with where I’ve ended up and hopefully only good things happen out of this.”

She added, “I’m really excited to be coming to Bendigo. I never thought that this opportunity would present itself. I think it’s just a credit to what Kennedy and everyone at the Spirit are building.”

Kereama agreed, telling The Next, “I’ve been an admirer of of her game for a long time. I actually coached against her South Australian under-16 team at a national championships. She did an exceptional job and even at that point in time she had the physical attributes and skills and talents. I knew at that point she certainly had what it takes.”

In 2023, her first year playing in the WNBL, Borlase won both Breakout Player and Sixth Woman of the Year. She was selected to the All-WNBL first team in 2024, just a few months before she made her way to the Paris Olympics to play with the Australian Opals. That year and a half stretch reads like that of a player who’s well within their prime, but she accomplished it all as a teenager.

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But Borlase’s want to improve is clear, as Kereama told The Next: “she wants to be coached and she’s told me that. She really wants to be given a lot of feedback and really dive deep into the detail. Sometimes that that level of coaching can come across as criticism and when you’re constantly giving feedback to players. Her mindset is in such a great place where based on where she wants to be. She knows that’s going to be a big part of it.”

On her development, Borlase highlighted three major areas; three point shooting, being present defensively and play-making. She told The Next: “Ahead of the season, I think one of the main things I’m trying to build is a more reliable and consistent three point shot. I’m a bit streaky and just probably not as consistent as I need to be. I think I also need to become more reliable on the defensive end in the sense of just locking down and staying ready for 24 seconds of the shot clock and not zoning out. Then also just making different reads about what the defense is giving me.”

She’s a tough guard and has plenty of tools on the defensive end. The improvement Borlase wants is purely maintaining her alertness. Kereama shared with The Next: “Izzy’s quick enough to be able to defend the one and she’s strong enough to be able to defend some of the four’s in the league. That’s what probably impresses me the most with Izzy. She’s just got this ability to take contact, play through contact, finish at the rim with contact and she’s incredibly versatile.”

With the foundational pieces of her game in place, her areas of improvement are now being refined. In joining last year’s champions, there’s a wealth of experience she can lean on along this pathway. The Bendigo Spirit recently had an electric season on the defensive end, holding opponents to a dismal 38.9% from the field. There was just one fault in the defense; the left short corner. Opponents shot 46.7% from this area against Bendigo last season; otherwise, the Spirit defended every other zone on the court extremely well. Clearly, no basketball team is designing their offense to attack this zone, and just 50 total field goals were attempted against Bendigo here throughout the season.

Adelaide were also strong defensively last season, holding teams to 39.2% from the field. With a lineup that consisted of Borlase, Steph Talbot and Brianna Turner, that’s no surprise. Borlase’s fit on the defensive end could be seamless, it’s just those lapses that need sewing up.

Kereama told The Next: “She can defend. She can bring the ball up, she can create. I think she’s probably one of the best players in the league at getting on the rim and drawing contact.”

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With the departures of Whitcomb and Burton, there’s a gargantuan hole to fill with creation duties in Bendigo. The Spirit were second in both assists per game and field goal efficiency and first in three point efficiency, outperforming the rest of the league by a sizeable margin in the latter. They also took care of the ball, landing dead last in turnovers with just 12.5 per game. Whitcomb and Burton combined for more than half of the teams assists last season, so the opportunities to run an offense will be there for Borlase.

As it pertains to play making, Kereama told The Next, “The pick and roll is such a big part of of basketball these days, particularly at the WNBA level. I mean, almost everything either starts or finishes in a middle or side pick and roll. So for us that’s where we want to try and invest time into.”

Per Synergy, the Adelaide Lightning averaged 0.797 points in the pick and roll, with Borlase dragging this up quite considerably at 0.877 for her own number. Bendigo were a little closer to Borlase’s mark, averaging 0.913 points as a team on 1.4 times more volume than Adelaide.

It will be interesting to see how Borlase integrates in Bendigo. Kereama is clearly eager to get to work with the hard working young star. The holes Borlase has identified in her own game also need filling in with the Spirit. Having just won a championship, the bar is high in Bendigo. Her play can’t have empty calories, in fact, the stakes will be as high as possible. Isobel Borlase and the Bendigo Spirit just shook the WNBL, and this may be one of the league’s most intriguing teams next season.