Even though she finishes her high school career with just one title in three trips to the B.C. final, she's still a champion
Avery Sussex was in pain. Her right hand was a painful throbbing mass, courtesy of a badly hyperextended thumb.
Her high school coach, Paul Langford, tried to get his star guard, then in Grade 10, to sit out the tournament game. Tried, and failed.
“She said ‘No, let me just try to play. And all through the game, it was like, ‘OK, let's, call it.’ And she was like ‘No, no, just let me hang in there for a bit,’” Langford recalled. “And she took the final to overtime. When people watched the tape, they were like, 'Avery didn't use her right hand in that game.' Nope. She played left-handed the whole game. She's see something different for sure. It was incredible.”
It was a Mamba Mentality moment, reminiscent of Kobe Bryant’s legendary lefty game against the New Orleans Pelicans in 2015. Or Bill Russell, hobbling down the tunnel in an inspiring return for the Boston Celtics. She often gets compared to Iowa star Caitlin Clark, a Kobe devotee and supporter of his legacy foundation.
But there are no real comparables for the player who took the Riverside Rapids to three straight B.C. championship games, winning once, and is now heading south to UC Davis to play after graduation.
“She's her own kid,” said Langford, who’s coached her in club, school and individual skill sessions since age 12.
“When she was younger, we kind of fooled around with the fact that she was like Lucas Doncic in the fact of just how well he played inside-outside, wanting the ball and a great assists guy. But you know, she's really her own type of player. I think she's a little bit incomparable. Caitlin Clark is an unbelievable role model for somebody, but they certainly play a lot differently.”
She was named the tournament MVP in this year’s B.C. provincials, averaging 31 ppg, even though her Rapids fell short of defending their crown against Seaquam in the final, coming up on the short end of the 79-73 score.
There’s one name that will fit, however: Miss Basketball 2024. She earned the honour of being named the top player in the province from a panel of coaches across the club community in B.C.
“They ended up naming around MVP even though the team didn't win. And that was because it was obvious, right?,” said Anthony Beyrouti, her head coach with VK Basketball, her club team.
“She was the most valuable player. She took care of everything. We (coaches) like to we like to pretend we're doing a lot out there. But at the end of the day, you give them you give them a path and then they're gonna take over. The year they won at Riverside, whenever they needed something to happen, she just said, 'all right, I got you coach. Have a seat. I got you.'
“She’s the ultimate teammate. Great competitor. Just loves the game. She's one of the few kids that you when you watch her play, you can you can tell she just loves it.”
The five-foot-8 guard did everything for the Rapids, leading them in scoring, assists and rebounding. She turned heads not just in B.C., but south of the border when VK took part in U.S. tournaments. When Chris Hansen, a scout and managing editor of Prospects Nation, and a member of the McDonald’s all-American Selection Committee saw her play, he tweeted out his respect. The Cal Stars, one of the pre-eminent California girls programs who’d just play Sussex, fired off a RT with the quote: “Let us know if you need validation”, in a sign of respect and admiration for the Canadian point guard.
“They're kind of the gold standard in California and she caught their eye. It was kind of cool,” said Beyrouti. “She's competed against the best American players and held her own.
“She plays some flair too, which isn't always the case with girls’ players. She's got a flair to her, a sense of the dramatic. Step backs, the pull ups, full-court passes ... all that stuff. It's kind of pretty exciting.”
Sussex was back in the lab this week, doing workouts with Langford in preparation for the All Canadian Games, the annual national high school all-star showcase formerly sponsored by BioSteel. It helps when your mom is the vice-principal at a high school, as she has access to the gym just about any time she needs it.
Her return to the court came after a brief interlude to recover and recharge after the painful loss to Seaquam in the provincial final. The expectations and bulls-eyes that came with being defending champs were a heavy weight, but Sussex did her best to bear them, scoring 35 points in the final and grabbing nine boards.
The Rapids held 10-point lead going into the fourth quarter, but the Seahawks opened the final frame with a 19-4 run and never looked back. Being named MVP was a distant consolation, but Sussex took a big picture view.
“I was having a conversation today, talking about the provincial final and how people will give like condolences because you lost and everything like that,” she said. “But I never thought about how cool of a high school season I had where all three years I made the provincial finals. Paul in his (28) years of coaching at Riverside ... he had only made the final once. So went three years in a row and then every other tournament that I was in, we went to the final every time ... It's just kind of like crazy to me the how little we lost and still had so much success. It's just we didn't always come back with the banner. But I look back at it as a huge achievement.”
But she’s focused on her future at UC Davis in San Francisco. The Aggies aren’t far removed from their run of five straight Big West Conference titles (2017-2021), losing in the semifinals and quarterfinals, respectively, the past two years.
Beyrouti always councils his players to make their own decisions, but to seek out a team that fits. Aggies head coach Jen Gross played four years for UCD, setting school records in assists, steals and three-pointers, and recently signed what amounts to a 10-year extension to remain head coach through 2031.
And it was the offer that resonated the most with her.
“It's gonna be a nice new chapter. A big challenge,” said Sussex. “I want to just be really good. That's just my goal. Is just be really good player and win. That's basically it.
“What really made me choose Davis was how stable the coaching staff was, the good culture on the team and that it was West Coast. I was far enough from home but close enough to catch a short flight and just be here. “I like the idea that they actually win — because I don't like to lose — but I also like to play. So just finding that balance of school where I could play and win was something big.”
Her role will change from doing, well, everything to being a facilitator and floor general, pushing the pace and catching teams in transition. Playing at the NCAA level doesn’t faze her; she’s already seen what her top-flight American competition will look like in club play.
And besides, she’s driven.
“The fear of failure and just being average,” she said, when asked what makes her tick.
“What fuels me is just not letting me get to that point where I want to ... get down on myself. I just need to keep like fuelling myself to like, not do that. I just can't be average. I can't fail.”
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