Sara Blicavs was a teenage scholarship holder at the Australian Institute of Sport when four-time Olympic medallist Kristi Harrower spoke to a young group of emerging basketballers.
"We were all about 17-years-old and Kristi said 'your career will fly by in a minute' and we were all young and you think you know everything and we were like 'no it won't, she doesn't know what she's talking about!" Blicavs recalls.
"But Kristi was completely correct, it absolutely flies by."
That's how the athletic forward, now 32, feels about her WNBL career which will reach 300 games on Friday night in her 16th season in the league.
Journeys intertwine through sport and Harrower's presence has popped up along Blicavs' path.
In her second year out of what was affectionally known as the 'Tute', she played alongside Harrower in Bendigo Spirit's 2013-14 championship.
A decade later, Harrower was assistant coach at the Melbourne Boomers where Blicavs played a season.
And on Friday night when Blicavs reaches her mega milestone she will be playing for Canberra against a Southside team coached by Harrower.
She has represented Australia at an Olympics, Tokyo 2021, and won medals at FIBA World and Asia cups, but Blicavs is proud of her WNBL career and the resilience she has shown after overcoming injuries that sidelined her for two separate seasons -- an ACL in 2018-19 and spinal surgery in 2024-25 that almost ended her career.
"I'm super grateful to even be on court again, when you look at where I was last year," she says.
"Not knowing if I could play again, you have metal in your spine now and to feel how mobile, athletic and fast and strong I feel again -- I'm in awe of myself and very proud of myself to even be functioning like this on court again.
"It's an enjoyable feeling to play the sport I love so much."
While Blicavs' WNBL career began with the AIS team, there was a season with Dandenong before that championship stop in Bendigo. The consecutive seasons and bulk of games came on return to Dandenong, who would later become the Southside Flyers.
When Melbourne was a two-team town, Blicavs was very much a Ranger, then Flyer, and embraced and hammed up the rivalry. Albeit for that one season in purple in 2023-24.
A favourite period was that under former Dandenong coach Larissa Anderson. The Rangers reached the Grand Final series in 2016-17, but fell short of Sydney, but the enjoyment levels were at an all-time high.
"They were some of my favourite basketball years in the WNBL," she explains. "I was playing with such freedom, such joy, the players on my team were amazing humans. It was so much fun, we did everything together, not just play and train but everything off court we did together.
"We had such a beautiful team that all played for each other and I got to play with my sister-in-law Steph (Blicavs nee Cumming) for a few years and my best friend Aimie (Rocci nee Clydesdale) and I look back on those times as so much fun and something that I'll definitely cherish forever."
Blicavs won her second championship with the Flyers in the unique Covid-led hub season of 2020 in Townsville. She has two titles from six attempts.
Championships are something her mother Karen knows all about.
Karen Ogden, as she was known before marrying fellow Australian basketball representative Andris, was a certified star and trailblazer in the WNBL's formative years.
In the inaugural season, she won the championship with St Kilda and again in 1982. She was crowned the league's first Most Valuable Player in 1982 and went back-to-back the next year when she tied with Robyn Maher.
The mop of blonde hair, the turnaround jump shot -- mother and daughter share all that and a whole lot of WNBL history.
Karen played 130 games and is in awe of her daughter, one of her three proudest achievements alongside sons Kris, also a basketballer, and Mark, AFL premiership player with Geelong and two-time club best-and-fairest winner.
"I am so proud of Sara and she's shown so much resilience, she'd probably have another 50 games on top of that if it wasn't for injuries," she said.
"Being her height she can handle the ball, I certainly couldn't, I could shoot and rebound but I couldn't dribble. She's got really good defence, which I didn't have either, and she's athletic.
"I enjoy watching Sara play, as her mum. 300 games is pretty special, not many get there and it's gone quick."