Image credit: Ian Knight Photography
Gemma Potter is so happy with the NBL1 South and WNBL home she's found at Geelong United and Geelong Venom that she sees no reason to ever want to move on as she gears up to maintain their undefeated NBL1 season.
When Potter originally joined Geelong for their maiden season in the WNBL, she was just grateful for the chance to remain closer to home having successfully returned from a devastating knee injury back at the start of WNBL23.
However, what the 23-year-old found is a basketball home that she might never want to leave starting with that WNBL season where she played a career-high 27.5 minutes a game and then remaining for the NBL1 South with United.
She has now been a key part of Geelong going through the regular season with a perfect 22-0 record with her putting up 15.1 points, 7.9 rebounds, 2.9 steals and 2.7 assists a game heading into the finals.
With Potter locked in for the upcoming WNBL season with Geelong as well, she couldn’t be happier with the new home she has found over the past 12 months.
"It's pretty special and I've definitely found a home here in Geelong," Potter said.
"Obviously I was in Canberra for five or six years, and going back and forth from there every six months so I was definitely looking for some more stability with my life.
"I definitely have found that here in Geelong and the way we have the opportunity to stay here for 12 months of the year isn't something you get in women's basketball too often.
"A lot of us have our second job on the side and we've made a little life here that is pretty hard to leave or walk away from."
Enjoying basketball more than ever
When Potter suffered another horror knee injury back at the start of the 2022/23 WNBL season when she was at the Canberra Capitals, she never was guaranteed of the successful return she has been able to make.
She was able to get back to play 19 games the next WNBL season with Canberra and then came back to Melbourne for the NBL1 South season at the Diamond Valley Eagles.
On the back of that, she joined Geelong for their first WNBL season, has stayed for this undefeated NBL1 South season and is gearing up already for the next campaign with the newly named Venom.
She couldn’t be happier with how the return from that latest knee injury has gone and with the enjoyment she's now getting out of basketball once more.
"I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy obviously and especially not just one of those injuries, but when you have two of them it really gets you down a fair bit," Potter said.
"But throughout the process I kinda found a life outside of basketball which has helped me come back to play my best basketball because it's not just about putting a ball in the hole for me anymore.
"It's doing it for the enjoyment and for the people around me, and the group we have here make it easier to want to go to work every day, and to smile and laugh.
"I don’t think I've had this much fun within a basketball team for a long time so this group is pretty special and it makes it easy to play good basketball when you're having fun."
Being involved in all areas of club
The great benefit of playing both your NBL1 and WNBL basketball in the same city is that it allows you to be part of things that otherwise you aren’t able to if you are playing in different places half the year.
Now while playing NBL1 for Geelong, she's been able to be part of things off-court in preparation for the WNBL season.
That included being at least some part of helping create the club's new identity with the name change to Geelong Venom and the new colours and everything that goes with that.
The best part of that is it makes Potter and her other teammates like Jaz Shelley in similar situations feel even more invested in the club they are playing for.
"I guess you get to see a different side of it and as players we usually just take the court, but given that Jaz and I were here throughout the off-season we got to sit in on a few meetings that otherwise we never would have been part of," Potter said.
"It's definitely given us more respect for the office and what they have to go through just to put a team together on paper so we sure don't take for granted what they do, and I don’t think we'll be in that position again anytime soon."
Something special building in Geelong
Now that Geelong has their own WNBL team and it's led into this undefeated regular season record in the NBL1 South, Potter can't help but notice the way the local community is getting behind the team.
No longer does the women's team feel like the warm up act for the men, but they feel like the main show and that's something that is special for Potter and her teammates to be experiencing.
"What we are building here is quite special and it's kinda hard to describe the emotion throughout the town with how they are embracing women's sport in general, and especially basketball," Potter said.
"Even in our last few games we've had sellouts and not just for the men's game or coming to ours at half-time, they've been there from the warm up for our game.
"It's not something you see really often and you don't always see that support when you're competing with the men's team, but the way this community has embraced us will continue to be amazing for this upcoming WNBL season with our roster shaping up really well too so I'm excited for it definitely."
Hitting reset for finals
While Geelong have gone through the season with a perfect 22-0 record and have been largely dominant throughout, Potter is fully aware that counts for nothing now that finals start.
"We've definitely hit reset," Potter said.
"It might sound silly, but I think even throughout the season it wasn’t something that we were chasing.
"We really took each game for what it was and respected every opponent the exact same way, and at the end we were just lucky to have that 22-0 record.
"Obviously now it does reset because we get two chances at this and if we lose both of them, that will be all for nothing. So it's about maintaining that winning and trying to get there as quick as we can."
Being tested while undefeated
Geelong missed the finals in the NBL1 South in 2024 with an 11-11 record but there was a significantly different feeling about them coming into 2025 on the back of the newly named Venom playing a first WNBL season.
It helped that Potter along with Hannah Hank, Jaz Shelley, Tanielle Knight, Taylor Mole and Dakota Crichton were all part of Geelong's WNBL team and then backed it up for the NBL1 South season.
Geelong started the season on fire winning the first six games by an average of 28 points before an overtime win over the Sandringham Sabres.
They would then win the last 15 games by an average of 25 points with only one of those being decided by single figures which was a nine-point win away to the Dandenong Rangers a fortnight ago.
It's as dominant a season as a team is likely to have in such a competitive league but Potter does feel they have been tested along the way.
"We did have a few games this year that really tested us and did feel like a final, especially that one against Dandenong that came down to the last couple of possessions and then we went to overtime with Sandringham earlier on in the season," Potter said.
"I don’t think it's been the smoothest of runs and getting wins easily as much as the record might look like.
"It's definitely been an awesome season and that doesn’t take away from what this group has been able to do, and it will still be impressive to look back on. But we're not satisfied at all with where we're at right now and we do want those next three wins."
Keilor a significant challenge
Geelong will now play host to Keilor Thunder in a qualifying final at The Geelong Arena on Saturday night with the winner to move straight into a preliminary final while the loser will get a second chance next week.
While Geelong finished at 22-0 and Keilor at 16-6, the Thunder were 16-2 before losing their past four matches with Maddy Rocci out injured and Issie Bourne at the FIBA Asia Cup in China.
Geelong did beat Keilor 96-78 just last Friday night but even with Rocci unlikely to be back, Bourne returning means that there's no way Potter or any of her teammates will be taking them lightly.
"Obviously we only just played them last week so it's probably worked in our favour that we're fresh with the scout and everything like that, and we're preparing a pretty similar way for them as we were last week," Potter said.
"But obviously with their inclusion of Issie Bourne, she's an amazing player and has shown what she can do on the world stage now so she won't be easy to stop.