Basketball Australia is today announcing that Melissa Downer has signed as Head Coach of the Centre of Excellence women’s program until 2028.
Mel Downer was selected as an interim Head Coach of the women’s program last year, following the departure of Dave Herbert who pursued a position in Victoria.
Downer led the women’s program to a Grand Final versus Manly-Warringah in 2025 and completes a full circle journey that started as an Assistant to Paul Goriss at the CoE in 2016.
“About 10 years ago, when Paul Gorris was the Head Coach, I came in as his assistant. Funnily enough I played the role of interim then as well, as Gorry left to coach the UC Caps in the WNBL,” Downer said.
“That was my first professional coaching gig. I had been coaching about 15 years at a volunteer / community level prior to that, so it was really a test to see if I wanted to coach as a job or if I was happy to continue as a hobby.”
“The first day I walked into that environment I absolutely loved it. I was hooked and never wanted to another job again. I was a coach for life.”
Since then, Downer has journeyed internationally with five years at Basketball New Zealand from 2019 – 2021, including assistant of the Tall Ferns before heading home.
She returned to Australia in 2022 with Basketball SA, before roles in the WNBL with Adelaide Lightning and UC Capitals.
Ultimately, the NZ detour provided a greater exposure to experience and challenge.
“My motto is if it makes you uncomfortable, then you've got to do it,” said Downer.
“Because that means it's challenging me and it's making me better. It's getting me out of my comfort zone and forcing me to work on things that perhaps I’m not proficient at or haven’t had opportunity to work on,” she added.
“That’s what the transition to New Zealand provided me. Experience in high performance management in particular and junior national team organisation and management of programs that are at the highest level,”
“I’ve spent the last ten years gaining a variety of experiences of different levels of coaching to equip me for my dream job, which is now a reality,” said Downer.
“To come back to the CoE and be able to do what I personally believe is the greatest coaching job in Australia, if not the world. I feel incredibly grateful.”
A golden era of women’s basketball may be ahead with participation levels setting new records annually in Australia.
For Downer and the COE they are tasked with casting a net across the talent in country to identify the next wave of Opals.
“We're really, really lucky in Australia that we've got a rich history with the Opals, in particular international success and understanding what that looks like in terms of the required athletes,” said Downer.
“The attributes of the athletes that are needed, not just the physical attributes, but the mental and character attributes of athletes to be able to succeed,”
“We excel at that because of the people around the country in our network that are willing to provide us with the intel and do the hard yards in their state programmes and their association programmes to get those kids that they've identified on the right path,”
“You know there are different paths. There's no right path for everyone. But first and foremost we need to be able to identify the talent as a starting point,” said Downer.
“Our coaching network in Australia is really strong and we've got a real proud history of that being the case,” she added.
“Lonno (Peter Lonergan) continues to drive that and build on the foundation of those that came before him such as Patrick Hunt, so it’s personally important to me to acknowledge and continue driving the legacy in Canberra.”
Downer’s role starts effective immediately and she will prepare a talented group of athletes for the start of the NBL1 East season in March.
