Image credit: Madeleine Clark | @madeleineclarkmedia
Mitch Clarke already has been a key player on two championship teams and has embraced everything about joining Warwick Senators in NBL1 West as he looks for more success after a triumphant finish at the Reading Rockets.
Clarke started his SBL career back as a teenager at the Perry Lakes Hawks and by 2018 while still only 18, was an important member of a championship team before backing that up with a brilliant 2021 season where he was perhaps the standout local point guard in the NBL1 West.
Since then, Clarke has spent two seasons in the NBL1 South with the Bendigo Braves under WA basketball great Steve Black, he spent an NBL season with the Perth Wildcats and has played the past two seasons in the United Kingdom playing at the Reading Rockets.
On the back of winning the triple crown with Reading this past season and ahead of joining the Newcastle Eagles in Super League Basketball, Clarke wanted to come back home and connected with Senators coach Andrew Cooper.
It's worked out famously too with Clarke having statistically the best season of his career with 19.0 points, 6.6 assists, 3.4 rebounds and 1.3 steals a game while playing his fewest minutes since the 2021 championship season with Perry Lakes.
Returning home but joining Warwick
Perry Lakes will always feel like a basketball home to Clarke given that's where he spent so many of his formative years and played the first 137 games of his SBL/NBL1 West career including being instrumental on two championship teams.
However, with the likes of coach Matt Parsons and championship teammates Ben Purser, Ryan Smith and Rob Cassier along with a host of others having since moved on, he didn’t have that same pull to return to the Hawks in 2025.
He was open to playing elsewhere within the NBL1 West and it soon became clear that the Senators and for coach Andrew Cooper would be the ideal fit.
"There has been a massive changing of the guard at Perry Lakes and really there's only two or three guys that were there still when I was last in 2023," Clarke told The Hoop Hour on 91.3 SportFM.
"They are still great mates of mine and I love watching them play, but they are in a bit of a rebuild phase and are trying to bring that next core group of guys through and it probably didn’t help that I would have had to miss the pre-season and the early part of the season.
"That potentially can throw a few teams off but I messaged Coops when I was over in the UK and mentioned I was keen to come back to the West.
"As soon as I said that, he was pretty keen to get me at Warwick and it just went from there. I'm really happy with my decision and have loved this season.
"I've really enjoyed getting to know all the boys at Warwick and playing under Coops. I've always admired him as a coach and I'm honoured to play for him so it's worked out really well. It wasn’t an easy decision but it's turned out well that's for sure."
Coming into another finals series
Clarke played his first game with the Senators fresh off flying in from England to have 18 points, nine assists and six rebounds in a 36-point win over the East Perth Eagles.
The Senators from there went on to finish the regular season in third position with an 18-4 record and now head to Geraldton to take on the Buccaneers on Saturday night in a qualifying final.
Even though the Buccs go into the game having won 11 straight and have beaten the Senators twice so far in 2025, Clarke sees no reason why they can't go up there and get the win to book in a preliminary final spot at Warwick Stadium.
"Everyone's super excited for the next month. Obviously both the men and women have had pretty good seasons and hopefully our girls get a few players back in time for finals, and can make a real push," Clarke said.
"Then with us, we've had a pretty solid end to the season and are gearing up for an exciting trip up to Geraldton this weekend and we'll see what happens there.
"At the end of the day, Geraldton are going to have to be beaten at some point for us to get to where we want to get to.
"If we beat them up there it will be amazing and I'm sure it will give us a lot of confidence moving forward in the series, and you never know we might end up playing them again. That will give us lots of confidence going into hopefully a grand final if we match up against them later on."
Having Pepper as a teammate
Another big reason why Clarke has enjoyed this season with the Senators so much is the back court that he's sharing with MVP runner-up and All-First Team member Elijah Pepper.
Considering Pepper led the scoring with 36.5 points a game this season, it's easy to think the Perth Wildcats guard was just a scoring threat. But he's also averaged more assists than Clarke as his point guard with 7.5 a game.
For so many reasons, Clarke has enjoyed calling him a teammate and even though nobody would say that Isaac White wasn’t a deserved MVP for his season with the Rockingham Flames, he's sure Pepper will want to have a big finals series.
"I think he was a bit unlucky but after the first five rounds when he was coming in second I thought it was going to be hard for him to win from there, and to be fair Isaac White had such an incredible season as well," Clarke said.
"To have both of those guys do what they did this year is pretty unbelievable. But Pep is just the ultimate competitor and in finals you're just going to see him go up a level in how much he wants to win, and how much he wants to do for the team.
"He'll do anything and everything for us to get the win which is great for us and hopefully it works in our favour. He gets a lot of praise for his scoring and what he does with the ball, but he's a very good passer as well.
"He's averaging close to eight assists a game so he certainly gets others involved and I'm sure he'll do anything it takes to win."
And Withers alongside him
Another NBL teammate is Todd Withers who was named on Saturday night as the league's Defensive Player of the Year.
Withers is fresh off being the Nominated Replacement Player this past NBL season at the Wildcats and does appear to be returning to that position.
Clarke has loved the versatility that he provides at both ends as a teammate.
"Todd's awesome to play with and as an import you couldn’t ask for a better one. He's such a good guy around the group, he's very selfless and is very happy for other people to do well," Clarke said.
"Obviously offensively he is amazing and shoots the ball like no one else, and defensively he's super dynamic where he can guard point guards but also big enough to guard centres and he makes a much more dynamic defensive unit when he's out there.
"It's awesome playing with him and he gives you a lot of reassurance that if someone's getting off the chain or if you need someone to help on the weakside he's ready to help and step up for the team.
"He takes a lot of pride in his defence and he's worked pretty hard this season to make sure he's put himself in the best position for an award like that, and it was really good to see him get recognised for the great season he's had on that end of the floor."
Embracing experience in the UK
After Clarke was overlooked for a second season as a development player with the Wildcats in NBL23 and after a season back home in the NBL1 West at Perry Lakes, he had a big decision to make.
He wanted to throw everything into playing professionally and having a British passport helped him be able to play in England as a local. He has spent the past two seasons playing with the Reading Rockets in Division 1 of British basketball.
Clarke was part of a Reading team that this past season won the National Cup, the KitKing Trophy and the Division 1 championship. It turned out to be his farewell to the Rockets ahead of joining the Newcastle Eagles in Super League Basketball for the 2025/26 campaign.
Clarke can't speak more highly about his experience playing and living in England so far.
"I feel like the league I was in which is NBL England which is their second tier and it's very comparable to NBL1," Clarke said.
"There's a lot of talented British guys playing in that league and I think probably the major difference is that over there most teams are training more than twice a week.
"You're doing three, four sessions a week and you have a bit more time to go through scout, refine your offences and things like that.
"And because the season goes for eight months, you've got a lot more time to really figure out what your system is, what offences work, add new plays and things like that with your adjustments throughout the season.
"Going over there has been a great experience and there's so much love for the sport, but they don’t quite have the facilities and access to pay like we do.
"That's a bit sad in a way because if they did I think Great Britain would be a top 20 basketball nation in the world because their participation rates are huge, and the love for the sport is massive. There's a lot of upside if they can get it right."
Playing basketball 12 months of the year
Taking the leap to play in the UK has allowed Clarke to now live out his dream of playing basketball all year-round having come home to play in the NBL1 South at the Bendigo Braves in 2024, and now with the Senators in 2025.
"It's been an awesome journey and I've really enjoyed having 12 months of basketball. I've grown a lot as a person and as a basketballer, and it's been amazing," Clarke said.
"I've had a lot of great coaches in that as well and a wide range of different coaching which has broadened my knowledge of the game.
"Being able to play for 12 months is awesome and you talk to other guys and they only wish they could do the same thing.
"I'm really fortunate that I have that British passport with the link from my parents being born over there, and that's opened a lot of doors up.
"It's been a great opportunity that I've really enjoyed both from a basketball point of view and it's been awesome too to live in a different country."
Having supportive basketball-minded parents
You wouldn’t find two more supportive parents than Mitch's either with his father Peter his self-confessed No. 1 fan and his mum Kerry providing plenty of basketball insights given her coaching and commentary involvement to this day in the sport.
"They're very supportive and they really pushed me to get out of my comfort zone to try new things, and make the most of the opportunities that I've had," Clarke said.
"They would be pretty excited of the opportunity I've got coming up to play with Newcastle as well. My mum was able to watch one pre-season game in the second week I was in England but not since then.
"Hopefully at some point in the future they'll manage to get across and see a few games. I would love that and I'm sure they would too but we'll see what happens there."