{"id":17305,"date":"2020-10-02T16:29:58","date_gmt":"2020-10-02T06:29:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/basketball.draftcentral.com.au\/?p=17305"},"modified":"2020-10-02T16:29:58","modified_gmt":"2020-10-02T06:29:58","slug":"wnbl-player-spotlight-perth-lynx-maddison-allen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wnbl-player-spotlight-perth-lynx-maddison-allen\/","title":{"rendered":"WNBL Player Spotlight – Perth Lynx – Maddison Allen"},"content":{"rendered":"

ROUNDING out Draft Central<\/em>\u2019s Player Spotlights on the Perth Lynx, we look at the return of the side\u2019s defensive centrepiece in Maddison Allen<\/strong>, who looks to expand her roles and responsibilities within Ryan Petrik<\/em><\/strong>\u2019s rotation in WNBL21.<\/p>\n

Allen, who is almost exclusively praised on her defence, has the chance to become more prominent on the offensive end, following the appointment of Perth\u2019s new head coach and Petrik himself looks to cater to both her strengths and weaknesses. \u201cWe know what she\u2019s elite at and what she wants to be good at,\u201d Petrik said. \u201cClearly we are constantly expanding what people want to be good at in their careers, but I don\u2019t know if we can make Maddie a better defender because she is already so good at it,\u201d he praised.<\/p>\n

\u201cParticularly we want to see a five per cent improvement offensively each year and put her in more offensive situations where she does not have to do a lot of heavy lifting. If we have Sami Whitcomb<\/strong>, Katie Ebzery<\/strong> and Darcee Garbin<\/strong> making the decisions, getting people open shots and facilitating the offence, we expect Maddie to reap the rewards from that,\u201d added Petrik.<\/p>\n

While Allen ranked second throughout WNBL20 in blocks per game with 1.8 each time out (trailed only the Adelaide Lightning\u2019s Brianna Turner<\/strong>), she still had decent nights in terms of offence. On two occasions, Allen would tally 12 points against both the Melbourne Boomers in early December and against the Sydney Uni Flames in late November. Proving that she does in fact have the ability to score double-digit figures, the challenge of doing it on a more consistent basis will be a focal point of Allen\u2019s next season.<\/p>\n

Not only is Petrik happy to be coaching Allen in a head coaching capacity next season, but the 191cm-tall center was just as ecstatic in her announcement. \u201cRyan was the first coach to really understand my game, to be able to have that understanding at a WNBL level is something I\u2019m really looking forward to,\u201d said Allen.<\/p>\n

After Allen earned the Grand Final Most Valuable Player award in the 2019 State Basketball League (SBL) final, it only reiterated Petrik\u2019s pride in watching his center develop tremendously over the last couple of years.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me personally it\u2019s been super rewarding,\u201d Petrik said. \u201cPurely from the fact we\u2019ve always known she could compete at the level she has. In Perth the last two years, she\u2019s really been able to show everyone what she can do when she herself has known the whole time. It\u2019s really pleasing to see her put a smile on her face from the sideline.<\/p>\n

\u201cAgain, her defensive ability has less than zero per cent to do with me, it\u2019s just her natural talent and her work-ethic. And getting to watch her deploy that on the court and prove myself right is just super pleasing to watch and I couldn\u2019t be happier for the kid,\u201d Petrik stated.<\/p>\n

How Allen will work with the high-calibre talent of Whitcomb, Ebzery and Garbin, will be closely monitored by everyone watching the Lynx make a run at the top-four next season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ROUNDING out Draft Central\u2019s Player Spotlights on the Perth Lynx, we look at the return of the side\u2019s defensive centrepiece in Maddison Allen, who looks to expand her roles and responsibilities within Ryan Petrik\u2019s rotation in WNBL21. Allen, who is almost exclusively praised on her defence, has the chance to become more prominent on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":17257,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2871,2811,11],"tags":[245,259,249,590,392,3128,3002,2110,1972],"class_list":["post-17305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-perth-lynx","category-wnbl","tag-darcee-garbin","tag-katie-ebzery","tag-maddison-allen","tag-melbourne-boomers","tag-perth-lynx","tag-ryan-petrik","tag-sami-whitcomb","tag-sydney-uni-flames","tag-wnbl"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/87"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}