Becca Allison is the latest Scot to turn her hand to basketball in America. The 18 year-old former Portobello High pupil will join compatriot Mairi Buchan at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, at the start of a four-year scholarship.

Wendy Larry, coach at the prestigious US university, was impressed by what she saw of Allison at last year's European "B" Championships in Macedonia where she averaged more than 10 points a game.

Donna Finnie, coach to the Scotland junior women's team, is in no doubt it is a natural progression for her protege to take up a scholarship in the United States, noting that Becca has come on, literally, by leaps and bounds over the last couple of years.

She has monitored Becca’s development closely, firstly as coach at Edinburgh Kool Kats four years ago and more recently when the Scotland junior team undertook a tour of Texas earlier this summer.

Allison appears to take it all in her stride. She flies out to Virginia with Buchan, who is returning for a second year this month, and she can hardly wait to get started.

The point guard does not even know what course she will be studying - it will be fixed up on arrival - but will get gleaning as much as she can from her fellow Scot before she boards the plane. 

"I've spoken to her a bit about it and she told me it's amazing. I know it will be a completely different level than what I'm used to as the game in America is huge," Allison says.

"The standard in Texas was quite high but I expect it to be even higher at ODU. I've only been to America twice so far, once before with the Scotland junior team a couple of seasons ago.

"I know it'll be a bit different this time. The standard is so high and I'll have some catching up to do. But I know I'll be training hard when I get there and hopefully it won't take me long to get up to speed.

"We have a tour of Mexico in November and the season begins shortly after that."

Allison was not firing on all cylinder in Texas after an illness and then an ankle injury laid her low but she was involved enough to whet her appetite for what is to come.

"We did reasonably well on our tour against girls that were bigger and stronger than us," she continues, "These girls have been brought up playing the game from an early age and obviously are going to be ahead of us in some aspects.

"I'm sure playing at ODU will bring my game on. Mairi was getting her game last season but the team had a few injuries and they didn't have the best of years.

"It's hard to take in that I'm going to play basketball in America. I played football and did a bit of running when I was younger but, when I was 14-15 and first made the Scotland Under-16 team, I had to drop those to concentrate on my basketball. It's paid off.

"I haven't really thought too much about what I do after ODU. The women's NBA is maybe something to look at further down the line but that is a long way off."

Coach Finnie recalls that, while Allison was not a stand-out player in the Kool Kats' team that won the Under-16 national league in 2005-06 season with a 20-0 record, she has come to prominence since.

"It was only when the domestic season was over that she improved so rapidly that I pulled her into my national Under-16 team for the European Championships in Luxembourg," she remembers.

"We got to the final and that is where I realised that Becca had what it takes to play at a much higher level. She showed there that her athletic ability would enable her to play against the better guards in European competition.  She showed this again at the European B Championships in 2007 in Romania and also in Macedonia in 2008, where she really shone on court.

"It was in Macedonia that she started to show the leadership qualities that had perhaps been lacking prior to this tournament, where she took on responsibility of handling the ball under the immense pressure we got from teams like Latvia and Belgium.

"Her quickness bothered every team we played and she scored in transition in every game, whilst showing her perimeter game and knocking down big threes in the games we won.

"This summer on our tour of Texas, Becca showed in the few games she did play that she will definitely make an impact when she gets to ODU and learns their systems. She has better athletic ability than any other guard we have had and once she refines her skills she has the potential to go further in the game.

"The fact she will get to play with Mairi Buchan at ODU will help Becca greatly and working with coaches like Wendy Larry and Belle Koclanes, who herself was a point guard, will only speed up her development.

"Becca is a great person to work with - I always joke she has ice in her veins, but she really rises to big occasions and doesn't let things phase her which is important for a guard.

"It has been a pleasure to work with her for the last four years. ‘Dino’, as we call her, will be missed, but she has set a real standard for younger guards coming through the system. Becca has great family support and I know they are excited at what lies ahead for her at ODU both on court and in the classroom!

"Becca has all the physical tools and so her fate lies in her own hands. If she continues to commit to her own development, the sky is the limit.

“It is fantastic as she leaves for ODU that her national squad and Kool Kats teammates Annie Rowan (Kansas City Kansas JC) and Kathryn Taylor (the Kent School) are also heading off on scholarships to good US programmes. Joining Rose Anderson, Siobhan Moore, Michelle Duff and Mairi Buchan who are all girls I have placed in the US, it shows that Scottish women's basketball is going places."

RM
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