AUSTRALIA— Back in early March, the greatest player ever to wear a Murray State women’s jersey was cutting down a net inside the Ford Center at Evansville after the Racers won their first-ever Missouri Valley Conference championship.

Saturday, that player — Katelyn Young — was celebrating her second championship and first of her professional career. The future Racer Hall of Fame forward contributed five points and two rebounds as her Knox Raiders team — ironically, carrying the same navy blue and gold color scheme as her alma mater — won Australia’s Women’s National Basketball League One South title with an impressive 84-64 win over favored Geelong.

Young joined the Raiders only days after participating in commencement exercises at Murray State in the building she called home the past five seasons, the CFSB Center. This came after she had led the Racers to an all-time-best 25-8 record and their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2008. 

Once Down Under, her team did not lose. She joined the Raiders on May 23 and, two days later, was on the floor. Saturday’s win over a Geelong team that was the only one in the entire NBL One field to complete the regular season undefeated (22-0) gives Young a 14-0 record so far with Knox, who lost to the United, 89-71, a few games before she arrived.

Though Young’s playing time was reduced during the postseason, she ends her first pro season having made her mark. Toward the end of the regular season, she was earning more than 20 minutes a game and was scoring in double figures with regularity.

Saturday, she was perfect, going 2-for-2 from the field and 1-for-1 at the free-throw line, while earning a postseason-high nine minutes. She came to Knox after a Racer career that put her on the national map as the 13th all-time-leading scorer in the history of women’s college basketball with 3,029 points, far and away the standard at Murray State. 

With the WBL One circuit being a summertime league, it is believed that Young will now seek opportunity for the main part of the global women’s basketball season, which starts in the fall and continues into the spring.  This could keep her in Australia or take her elsewhere, perhaps to Europe, where another former Racer star — KeShunan James — has found huge success the past few years with the Piestanske Cajky outfit in Slovakia. 

James has been the Nike Slovakia Extraliga Finals Most Valuable Player the last three years, all resulting in PC winning the title.