Young excited for trip Down Under
WBB: Murray State's GOAT has signed a contract to play professionally in Australia
On December 9th, 2023, Murray State’s Katelyn Young walked across the stage at the CFSB Center to receive her bachelor’s degree — and then ran to the team bus as she and her Racer teammates traveled to Austin Peay to play the Governors later that afternoon.
Fast forward 18 months, and this weekend it’s time for another commencement ceremony for Young, as she’ll receive her Master’s degree in Human Development and Leadership. This time around, Young’s graduation will have a whole lot less running for everybody involved.
“I've been talking to people and they're like, ‘You're going to walk again?’ Young smiled. “I was like, ‘Well, the first time I didn't really get to walk.’ My senior year of high school, I never had a true graduation because of Covid, so, technically, you could say this is my first time in a real graduation.”
The goal for most college graduates is to get a job as soon as they can after they get their degree. Young was lucky enough to already have a job lined up before she graduated. Earlier this week, she signed her first professional basketball contract with the Knox Raiders in Australia.
“I thought it was just a great start,” Young said about her first professional stop. “To get a little bit of a taste of being away from home, not really being on the same time as everybody, and adjusting to that for a couple months before really going over to Europe for a really long time.”
The Knox Raiders play in the NBL1, which is the second-tier professional league in Australia. The NBL1 season has already begun and runs through mid-July. Once she wraps up in Australia, Young plans to head to Europe at some point to play this fall, although she doesn’t have a team lined up just yet. She did say she was surprised at how quickly her agent was able to match her up with a team in Australia.
“Figuring out in three weeks you might be playing a game is like ‘Oh my gosh,’” Young chuckled. “It was just kind of a shock of how fast it was moving. I’ve heard so many great things about Australia from other people, so I'm super excited to go down there, explore a little bit, and still play basketball.”
The last time we saw Young play basketball was in the NCAA Tournament in late March. She left the game early in the second half with a badly sprained ankle. After six weeks of rehab, Young says she is doing a lot better.
“I've been working out, trying to get back into shape after taking probably about a month off, just not doing anything,” Young said. “Making sure my ankle’s all good and everything like that. It's definitely a lot better now. Like I said, I've been doing workouts and stuff like that. There's not much pain anymore, so we're good to go.”
As she prepares for a great basketball and life adventure, Young says there’s plenty she’s looking forward to that doesn’t have anything to do with the game she loves.
“Just learning the culture over there,” Young said. “I'm excited to go exploring, hopefully see a kangaroo or something like that on the side of the road. That would be super cool, just kind of exploring and seeing the world down there.”