Albany teenage basketball sensation Billy McRae gets National Performance Camp nod for second straight year

Rising Albany basketballer Billy McRae is focused on learning and improving his game after being selected for Basketball Australia’s National Performance Camp for a second successive year. The 195cm towering teenager will travel to the Centre of Excellence in Canberra along with five other WA players as part of a 50-strong squad of the best budding basketballers across the nation. The four-day camp, starting on January 21, gives the best-emerging basketball talents the opportunity to hone their skills and compete in an elite environment. Almost a year after his first appearance at the camp, the 16-year-old BWA Male High Performance Athlete of the Year award winner in 2024 said he was eager for the challenge and keen to build on last year’s showing. “There’s heaps of coaches who have played for Australia so I’m looking forward to learning from them and to compete with the best players in the country,” he said. “I know now the standard of training you need to be at. You need to be switched on the whole time and then still be composed. “(You need to) still play your own game, be a good teammate, a good leader, especially a point guard.” McRae, who’s a Year 11 boarder at Wesley College in Perth, captains the school’s first team and plays for Perry Lakes in the NBL1 competition, but the star point guard has loftier ambitions for the future. “NBL1 is coming up and hoping to play in the senior squad,” he said. “The under-18 nationals are coming up in April so that’s my big focus and hopefully I can play for a junior Australia team and get a scholarship to the (Basketball Australia) Centre of Excellence. “I’d like to play in the NBL but also been thinking lately if I want to play college basketball (in America).” McRae will play for Perry Lakes in the BWA State Titles at Bendat Basketball Centre in Perth from December 13-15 before returning home to Albany for the holidays.