Derbyshire Talented Athlete Fund

I've had a great experience this last year with basketball. After captaining the England U18 team at last year's Euro B Championships and finishing 4th, I moved out to Oklahoma, United States to attend Oral Roberts University.

Originally I had decided, with the coaching staff, to red-shirt my freshman year which basically means that I practice with the team all year but sit out the games (basically a developmental year) so that I wasn't wasting a year of eligibility with limited playing time. However, due to a number of injuries at my position I was called up mid-season to help the team out. It has been a great experience playing NCAA Division 1 basketball and the team finished with a 20-13 record, finishing 3rd in our conference and losing to 2nd place in the conference tournament semi-finals. We beat some very good teams including Stanford, Missouri and New Mexico (ranked number 8 in the nation at one point). I know that my game has improved alot this year and that I have learned some very valuable lessons on and off the court. Despite being a walk-on this year my head coach showed great interest in my development and gave me the opportunity to play in some big games and the coaches were very happy with my contributions on the year.

Although the season is now over, off-season workouts are starting soon and I will be focussing on preparing myself to play in this summer's European Championships with the GB U20s squad.

Mikey Manghum