Rachael Vanderwal (born 27 June 1983) is a 5'9 (1.75m) former point guard for Great Britain women's national basketball team. She was part of the squad for the 2012 Summer Olympics[1] and part of the England squad that took silver at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.[2] She has dual citizenship with Great Britain and Canada.
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Born | 27 June 1983 (age 41) Burlington, Ontario, Canada | ||||||||||||||
| Listed height | 5 ft 9 in (175 cm) | ||||||||||||||
| Listed weight | 146 lb (66 kg) | ||||||||||||||
Medals
| |||||||||||||||
Rachael grew up in Hamilton, Ontario Canada. She figure skated until the age of 12, when she took up the sport of basketball.[3] She played for Bishop Ryan Secondary School in Hamilton winning the provincial championship her final year in 2001. She played for Boston University in the NCAA Division 1 from 2002 to 2006 in the America East Conference. She captained the squad her sophomore, junior and senior years. As a freshman, BU won the America East and went to the NCAA tournament, playing the national champions University of Connecticut in the first round. She received All-Conference first team and All-Defensive team her senior year. She remains in the career top ten in minutes played.
Rachael has played professionally in the Irish Superleague from 2007 to 2014.[4] Her first two seasons where with Donoughmore, Cork where she won National Cup and League Titles and Player of the Year back to back. In 2009, she transferred to the University of Limerick where she led the league in scoring. The UL huskies have dominated the Irish Superleague in recent years winning 4 regular season titles, 3 national cups and 3 league playoffs from 2010 to 2014, with Rachael playing a dominant role. Rachael won Player of the Year three years in a row from 2011 to 2013.
She then moved on to playing professionally in the top Liga Femenina in Spain for the past five seasons from 2014 to 2019. She has played for Gernika Bizkaia, Mann-Filter, and Uni Ferrol.
She made her Great Britain Senior debut in 2010 against Portugal. She has played with the senior team ever since, participating in Eurobasket 2011, the London Olympics 2012, Eurobasket 2013, Eurobasket Qualifiers 2014, Eurobasket 2015, Eurobasket Qualifiers 2016, Eurobasket Qualifiers 2018 and most recently Eurobasket 2019 where Team GB placed 4th and received a bid to the 2020 Tokyo Olympic qualifiers. She received her 50th cap in the London Olympics against Brazil. She received her 100th cap playing against and officially announced her retirement on October 5, 2022. She has 118 caps and prior to finishing her career, she married fellow GB player Eilidh Simpson two months earlier then moved to Australia and got a dog called Moose.
Boston University statistics
editSource[5]
| GP | Games played | GS | Games started | MPG | Minutes per game |
| FG% | Field goal percentage | 3P% | 3-point field goal percentage | FT% | Free throw percentage |
| RPG | Rebounds per game | APG | Assists per game | SPG | Steals per game |
| BPG | Blocks per game | PPG | Points per game | Bold | Career high |
| Year | Team | GP | Points | FG% | 3P% | FT% | RPG | APG | SPG | BPG | PPG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002-03 | Boston University | 21 | 66 | 31.0% | 21.4% | 76.0% | 1.7 | 1.1 | 1.3 | 0.0 | 3.1 |
| 2003-04 | Boston University | 30 | 123 | 40.8% | 10.0% | 52.3% | 2.8 | 2.4 | 1.3 | 0.0 | 4.1 |
| 2004-05 | Boston University | 31 | 351 | 43.8% | 35.6% | 81.3% | 4.9 | 4.8 | 1.4 | 0.3 | 11.3 |
| 2005-06 | Boston University | 30 | 380 | 38.3% | 28.3% | 70.6% | 6.4 | 3.5 | 1.1 | 0.1 | 12.7 |
| Career | 112 | 920 | 39.9% | 29.1% | 71.9% | 4.1 | 3.1 | 1.3 | 0.1 | 8.2 |
References
edit- ^ "Rachael Vanderwal". London 2012 Summer Olympics. London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Archived from the original on 28 July 2012.
- ^ "Commonwealth Games: England women beaten in basketball final". BBC News. 14 April 2018. Retrieved 26 June 2020.
- ^ "Rachael Vanderwal - Basketball". Team GB. Retrieved 26 June 2020.
- ^ "Gifted Rachael Vanderwal was one of the greatest imports in Irish basketball". echo live. 13 June 2020. Retrieved 1 June 2021.
- ^ "NCAA Statistics". web1.ncaa.org. Retrieved 1 June 2021.
External links
edit- Rachael Vanderwal at FIBA.com (archived)
- Rachael Vanderwal at Eurobasket.com
- Rachael Vanderwal at Proballers
- Rachael Vanderwal – Basketball-Reference.com international player profile
- Rachael Vanderwal – Sports-Reference.com college basketball player profile
- Rachael Vanderwal at Team England
