Ryan's Story
Having begun playing when he was six, Broekhoff would eventually head to the US to play college basketball where he lined up for the Valporaiso Crusaders. In his last of four years at the college he averaged 16 points and over 7 rebounds in his final season and helped take the side to the coveted NCAA tournament.
He began his professional career in Turkey, won Summer Universiade silver for Australia and then got his first chance for the senior national side at the 2014 FIBA World Cup. A move to Russia would soon follow before he helped Australia qualify for Rio at the 2015 Oceania Championships.
He made his Olympic debut at the Rio 2016 Games where Australia would go on to just miss out on a historic first Olympic men’s basketball medal. The Australian side began the competition with wins over medal contenders France and Serbia. A close loss to the USA was backed up by strong wins over China and Venezuela to see the side finish their group in second. They eased past Lithuania in the quarter-finals before going down to Serbia 87-61 in the semi-finals. The result set up a bronze medal clash with Spain which went down to the wire. Australia again missed a medal by the barest of margins as the Spanish scored two free throws with just over 5 seconds remaining to take the final position on the Rio podium.
Broekhoff averaged 7.6 points, 2.9 rebounds and 2 assists in just over 18 minutes per game.
