Ballarat Rush basketballer Rachel Jarry was Tuesday morning informed via social networking site Twitter that she had been drafted to arguably the most prestigious basketball competition in the world, the American Women's National Basketball League (WNBA).
Jarry was the second Australian to be selected in this year's draft when her name was called out by the Atlanta Dream."I'm still pinching myself, I'm seriously in shock, it's just a huge honour and I'm feeling really lucky right now," Jarry says.
Jarry was at a Bulleen Boomers draft party, where the WNBL team had gathered at 5am this morning to watch teammate Liz Cambage get drafted.
Cambage was selected at pick two and the party were ecstatic, but shortly after the first round the live stream cut out, leaving Jarry to find out she had been drafted in a very unconventional but modern way.
"We couldn't get the second and third rounds up, so I just seriously got a tweet on twitter and someone said you've just been drafted to Atlanta and I couldn't believe it.
"Some guy who I don't even know said [on twitter] you have been drafted."
Since the news Jarry says she has got almost 100 new followers on twitter, all congratulating her on becoming a WNBA player.
The 19-year-old knew there was a chance she could be selected in this year's draft but didn't expect it to happen so early.
"You only have two years of being eligible for the draft and this was my first year," she says.
"Myself and my manager had been speaking to a couple of teams who had shown a little bit of interest, so I was thinking if I was going to get drafted it would be late third round."
But Jarry's name was called out in the second round at pick 18 by Atlanta.
"I hadn't even spoken to Atlanta so that was kind of out of the blue but really, really exciting."
Jarry has spent one season with the Ballarat Rush [formally the Lady Miners] in the SEABL where she was awarded the team's most valuable player as well as winning the league MVP.
She averaged 19.6 points and nine rebounds in her 23 games for Ballarat.
"My season with Ballarat last year really helped me, I was able to introduce new skills into my game in an environment where I was the go to player and had a lot of responsibility to score.
"I really carried that form over into the WNBL season, so I'm really grateful for everything that Ballarat gave me last season," she says.
This year Jarry averaged 13.4 points and 5.8 rebounds playing in the WNBL for the championship winning Bulleen Boomers.
*Ballarat Rush assistant coach Sarah Monck confirmed on ABC Ballarat breakfast on Wednesday morning that Jarry has decided to stay on with the Rush for a second season and not join the WNBA until after the 2012 Olympics. Jarry's number one priority is making the Opals team in London and she believes playing in Australia will give her a greater chance of being selected. In further news, just hours after being selected by Atlanta Jarry was traded to the Minnesota Lynx.
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