There are few things more popular than Australian Rules Football and basketball in Victoria – Melbourne in particular – being the sporting capital of the world. The love for both reaches into the highest levels of these two great sports. Some of our most successful basketball players such as Andrew Bogut, Ben Simmons, Matthew Dellavedova and Patty Mills played footy as juniors and still love the game and follow it closely. 

The reverse is also true for many our our AFL/AFLW stars – Scott Pendlebury, Christian Petracca, Todd Goldstein, Tegan Cunningham and Hugh Greenwood to name just a few –  all played basketball at an elite level, before they made the choice to play AFL professionally. Two players involved in our Wudzy game – Corey Maynard and Craig Moller – have played both in the AFL and NBL. Craig choosing to stick with basketball and Corey choosing AFL.

Tegan Cunningham currently plays AFLW for Melbourne Demons and recently retired from the Melbourne Boomers in the WNBL. Numerous players we spoke to have been wanting to organise an AFL basketball game for years and were excited to hear that it was finally happening. 

Many in the AFL and basketball worlds know all too well the realities of cancer, with the likes of current football stars Jarryd Roughead, Robbie Gray and Jesse Hogan beating the disease in recent years. Hugh Greenwood famously has a pink ribbon tattoo on his hand in honour of his mother Andree, who sadly died of breast cancer in 2017 and Peter Hooley lost his beloved mum Sue to colon cancer in 2015. The impact of this disease is felt far and wide and we thank these wonderful athletes for helping us raise awareness of Wudzy and all that we are doing to help cancer patients everywhere.