By JARROD POTTER AND JACK BAILEY
Welcome back Anthony Drmic to Australian basketball after the Dandenong Rangers alumnus signed on with the Adelaide 36ers this week.
The 198cm guard/forward has booked his ticket home for the summer NBL season, but it won’t be to Melbourne.
Instead Drmic, 24, from Endeavour Hills, is off to South Australia after signing a two-year deal to play locally instead of chasing contracts in Europe.
“Signing with Adelaide was an easy choice for me – I feel like I will be able to join and contribute right away especially with how the team is run and there style of play,” Drmic said.
“I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do after the college season but after considering a few different things I decided having my first year back home would be most beneficial for me.
“I’m really looking forward to coming back and showing how I have grown as a player to the Australian basketball scene – it feels like I have been away for so long and that I have something to prove.”
From beating 11th ranked Creighton to dropping 34 points against LSU in front of monster Idahoan crowds at Taco Bell Arena, Drmic’s time in the Bronco’s jersey had its ups and downs but he tends to look back on the better moments instead of the injuries that hampered his five-year stint.
Finishing his fifth and final year at Boise State University, Drmic rattled off 13.4 points, 4.4 rebounds and 1.4 assists per game – plus his usual bucketload of treys – to finish the school’s all-time leading three point record holder (275).
The two-three man finished only two points off the school’s all-time points record and ended up fifth overall in the Mountain West Conference’s all-time scoring list to cap off an extraordinary college career.
It was made all the more amazing considering Drmic was hampered by a nerve injury throughout the season but he said it should ease up in time for his NBL debut.
“This last season was an interesting one for me, I ended up have a rare complication during surgery and sustained nerve damage in my leg which, in all honesty, hindered me this entire season,” Drmic said.
“It is, however, getting stronger and stronger and I expect it to be 100 per cent by the time the NBL season rolls around.
“I am just glad I was able to play and contribute anyway I could my last year at Boise.
Towards the end of his final year he dropped 30 points against New Mexico – which he loved the most all season considering the pain he had to overcome to suit up most weeks.
“Scoring 30 at the pit in New Mexico was pretty crazy considering how my season was going and how I was still injured,” Drmic said.
“It was starting to come together after that game.
“It was definitely a challenging experience but I am just so happy I got to see and do some pretty incredible things this last five years whilst playing the game I love.”
