Island spirit lives on in Tasmania Jewels' basketball debut

In short:

It's been 30 years since Tasmania was booted from the women's national basketball league.

Now it's back, with the Tasmania Jewels to play their debut WNBL game in front of a sell-out crowd.

What's next?

The Jewels play at MyState Bank Arena on Thursday night against the Geelong Venom.

It was one of the most rapid declines in Australian sport.

In 1991, the Hobart Islanders were champions of the Women's National Basketball League (WNBL) and the toast of Australian basketball.

But five years later, having won just three games in the previous two seasons, the Islanders were $45,000 in debt and resorting to rattling tins to survive.

In a desperate bid to save the club, they launched a raffle to raise money.

Tickets were $2, and first prize was a runabout boat.

Frustrated, the league issued Tasmania an ultimatum: no pay, no play.

There was even a barb directed at the Islanders by then-league boss Leanne Grantham who, like many of her contemporaries, couldn't see a world where a Tasmanian team was sustainable.

"You only have to look at the Devils last year, and the fact the AFL hasn't started up a team in Tasmania" she said at the time.

"You just can't generate enough income running chook raffles and cake stalls."

Players, unsure of the club's survival, started to desert the island and sign elsewhere.

Three weeks out from the 1997 season, it was all over.

Fast forward 30 years, and the Tasmania Jewels — the state's resurrected WNBL team — are training out of a state-of-the-art facility and are backed by millions of dollars in private and public money.

To the Islanders of yesteryear, they might as well be the Los Angeles Lakers.

Former assistant coach Ross Park remembers the Islanders training and playing out of suburban recreation centres in the early '90s.

He also recalls the fervour the Islanders created when they beat Nunawading in the WNBL championship game in 1991, and the lengths the public went to support the team.

"There were a few fleeting moments where it looked like [the championship game] may not go ahead because it was over capacity and nobody was brave enough to say [to patrons], 'you have to leave'," Park said.

"So, two fire trucks came down from Hobart and stayed outside and maintained safety while the game proceeded."

Debut game sold out

Tasmania's passion for pro hoops still burns.

The Jewels have already set a WNBL membership record of 3,349.

Two days out from their home opener against Geelong, tickets for the 4,800-capacity MyState Bank Arena have sold out.

Jewels coach Claudia Brassard believes in Tasmania, a hype exists that won't be found anywhere else.

"It's really unique to Tasmania. I felt it the first week I was here," she said.

"I don't think you can find anything like this across the country. The support we have here is unique."

There are stories woven throughout the Jewels inaugural team, like that of centre Keely Froling, whose parents were brought together by basketball.

Froling's mum, Jenny, played on the championship Islanders, while Dad, Shane, played with the former men's NBL team, the Devils.

On Thursday, she too will represent Tasmania.

Pressure mounts on players to perform

But amid the emotion and the weight of history, there's a scramble for the team to get physically ready for the home opener.

Just over a week out from the Jewels' first game, Brassard is getting to work, physically instructing her players on how to defensively "wall up" without committing a foul.

She instructs her players to "walk through" the offensive player.

"Don't jump, but wherever she goes, just walk through her," she tells her chargers.

"They'll never call that foul."

Brassard is also dealing with the prospect of her marquee point guard, Australian Opal Steph Reid, being underdone heading into the team's first game.

Reid, the Jewels' offensive engine, spent a chunk of the pre-season in Germany with the national team for the World Cup — her absence compounded by a grumbly knee that is threatening to impact the early part of her season.

The Jewels also find themselves in a quandary over Kenyan star Madina Okot, who is currently competing in the WNBA finals with the Atlanta Dream.

The dilemma: for every game the Dream win, a week with the Jewels is lost.

The more successful the Dream are, the longer the Jewels must wait for its star to arrive.

There's a sense, too, among the club's higher-ups that the Jewels largely want for nothing.

It's now up to the players to perform.

Brassard feels that the pressure and the expectation have been earned.

"We've put ourselves in that position. Pressure is good. We embrace it. We focus on the work we've done, and we trust the work of ourselves and our teammates," she said.

For Park and the legends of yesteryear, it's a pressure his Islanders could only have dreamed of.

"They've worked so hard for so many months now that they'll have a good game. They deserve to have a good game,"he said.

His tips?

"Just play hard. Play together. Have fun. Enjoy it."