Have basketball, will travel

Sam Keltos will be adding another country to her basketball resume.

The 25-year-old St. Catharines native, who started her pro career with the Western Port Steelers of the Big V Basketball League in Australia, played this past season with the Manchester Giants in the Women’s British Basketball League and recently signed a contract to suit up with the KSE Targu Secuiesc squad in Romania.

The Sir Winston Churchill and Brock University grad had been having conversations with other teams in the WBBL when her agent mentioned a team in Romania was interested in signing her to a contract.

“I hope to go to different countries as I go through my pro career so as awesome as it would be to go back to the WBBL, I thought Romania would be a really cool experience and the pay was a little bit more,” she said. “It will also give me exposure to other teams and the coach I am going to play for is from Spain and he has coached at high levels. That is also another incentive to see what kind of doors that opens. Maybe I could go play in Spain because Spain is a bucket list place to go, for sure.”

Keltos knows she is only young once and she wants to make the most of her opportunities.

“It’s to see the world and see how well I can do individually and with a team,” he said. “I never thought I would fall in love as much with meeting people, seeing different places and finding new adventures to go on,” she said. “I always thought it was going to be basketball, basketball, basketball, but it is more the adventure side of it, the people and the whole different life experience.”

She plans to pursue her pro career as long as possible.

“I have it in my head that I want to go for four or five more years.”

Since helping Brock win a silver medal at the national championships and earning St. Catharines co-athlete of the year in 2020 honours in the process, Keltos game has continued to evolve.

“Individually, I have figured out my one-on-one play more. I have always been a team player but my agent always tells me ‘Sam, in pro basketball, you’ve got to take what you can get and take the opportunities you can get on the court.’ It’s being more assertive and more aggressive. It’s pass to the open player and team play but when you have the opportunity, you kind of want to take it.”

She did just that with Manchester, averaging 34.1 minutes, 18.6 points and 9.8 rebounds per game.

Keltos has also evolved as a person in the past year and a half.

“I am very independent now. Coming home and living at home now is sometimes difficult because living on my own and having my own routines I am more self sufficient. I can take care of myself.”

She loves being a nomadic pro basketball player.

“It’s going into a new league where no one knows me besides the coach. I’m not one to talk about my game. I like to show it,” Keltos said. “This past year I was on the bottom team in the WBBL and myself and another girl were able to make some noise about ourselves because we were doing well.”

There have been plenty of high points in her brief pro career.

“It’s being able to sit on a 12-hour flight without getting up,” she said, with a laugh. “I was always afraid of flying and navigating through airports but now it is second nature to me now. It’s another part of me growing up and figuring out life.”

Since she has been home, Keltos has been training with the Brock women’s basketball team. For the former NCAA Division 1 player at St. Francis, Brock feels like the place where things truly started.

“I sometimes wish that I had did all four years at Brock just because I feel like this is my home. But it has been really cool because my sister (Brookelyn) has been coming in. We come in in the mornings to shoot at 7 a.m. before the Brock camp and then practise at night. Coming back is more special because she is also here. Seeing her playing and fitting right in has been really great.”

Sam has given her sister one main piece of advice about university ball.

“Don’t be timid and do you. Everyone has things they bring to the team and if you are scared or nervous because you are a first year, you are not helping the team.”