Kelsey Griffin is the most competitive person Bendigo Spirit coach Simon Pritchard has met.
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So when it only took one training session for Griffin to speak in glowing terms about the work ethic of new US import Betnijah Laney, Pritchard knew he was on a winner.
“Kelsey and Benijah had a training session this morning and the two of them just went at it,’’ Pritchard said.
“At the end of the session Kelsey said to Betnijah ‘I love doing individual sessions with you because you make me better’.
“That competitiveness is exactly what we want from Betnijah.”
Laney is no stranger to the WNBL.
She played one season with Perth, helping the Lynx to the 2015-16 grand final.
She returned to the WNBA to play with the Chicago Sky, but she tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee in June last year, missed the rest of the season and was cut by the Sky earlier this year.
Despite the knee concerns, Laney’s season with the Lynx was enough for Pritchard to swoop.
“When we played against Betnijah we struggled to match up on her because she’s such a competitive, slashing guard/small forward type of player,’’ Pritchard said.
“We’ve never really recruited a player of that type to Bendigo before.
“It’s always been the bigger type of players that have been recruited to Bendigo.
“We never had a match-up that was right for her because she is a bigger guard and she was too big four normal guards and too quick for our bigger players. We had to put Kelsey on her, but that would tax Kelsey.
“We had that match-up problem, so when we had the opportunity to recruit her we jumped at it because we thought she could cause the same match-up problems for other teams.”
Laney and fellow US import Rachel Banham give the Spirit a new-look backcourt.
Banham, who is about to embark on a WNBA play-off campaign with the Connecticut Sun, plays a traditional guard role and is renowned for her scoring ability.
Laney can play multiple positions, loves to rebound and can defend inside the paint or on the perimeter.
The Spirit plays pre-season games against Adelaide and Dandenong at Sunbury and Werribee respectively on September 16 and 17 before tackling Melbourne Boomers in Ballarat on September 22 and the Centre of Excellence in Echuca on September 24.
The WNBL season starts on the weekend of October 6-8, with the Spirit away to the University of Canberra Capitals.
