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Tully Bevilaqua

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Tully Bevilaqua
No. 41 – Indiana Fever
PositionGuard
Personal information
Born (1972-07-19) July 19, 1972 (age 52)
Merredin, Australia
NationalityAustralian
Listed height5 ft 7 in (1.70 m)
Listed weight145 lb (66 kg)
Career information
Playing career1998–present
Stats Edit this at Wikidata at Basketball-Reference.com
Tully Bevilaqua
Medal record
Women's Basketball
Representing  Australia
Olympic Games
Silver medal – second place 2008 Beijing Team Competition
World Championship
Gold medal – first place 2006 Brazil Team Competition

Tully Bevilaqua (born Tully Louise Crook on July 19, 1972 in Merredin, Western Australia) is an Australian professional women's basketball player. She currently plays for the Indiana Fever in the WNBA. In Australia's WNBL, she played for the Canberra Capitals, who she helped win the 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 championships.

The 5'7" Bevilaqua's play style is energetic and disruptive, so much so that she is usually in the top 10 in steals. In the 2005 regular season, she had more steals per turnover than any other player.

WNBA career

Bevilaqua was never drafted by a WNBA team.

She was signed by the Cleveland Rockers as a free agent before the 1998 season began, but played only 12 regular-season games for them before being waived by the team on July 1998.

In 2000, she signed a free agent contract with the Portland Fire and played with them for three seasons until the franchise folded after the 2002 season.

In 2003, she signed another contract with the Seattle Storm, and played two seasons for them, capping the 2004 season when the Storm won the WNBA Championship, defeating the Connecticut Sun, two games to one.

In 2005, she signed with the Indiana Fever, and led them to a #2 seed in the playoffs, where they swept the New York Liberty in two games, but in turn were swept by the Connecticut Sun in the Eastern Conference Finals.

Despite Bevilaqua's WNBA success, she failed to make the Australian national team until 2006 at the age of 34, when she helped lead the Opals to the gold medal in the 2006 FIBA World Championship for Women.

On August 27, 2007, Bevilaqua played a key scoring, defensive, and leadership role in the greatest comeback in WNBA history when the Indiana Fever overcame a 22 point first half deficit to win the deciding game three of the Eastern Conference Semi-Finals against the Connecticut Sun. Later that week on August 31, 2007 Tully was awarded the Kim Perrot Sportsmanship Award from the WNBA.

2004 Championship Season

One of the highlights of Bevilaqua's career was her participation on the 2004 Seattle Storm championship team. In the championship series, the Connecticut Sun won the first game of a three-game series. Then, before sold-out crowds at Seattle's Key Arena, Bevilaqua and the Storm won the second and third games to take the crown as champion. Bevilaqua's role in the series was backup point guard to Sue Bird and Betty Lennox, but she contributed in every phase of the game—scoring, rebounding, and playing the tenacious defense that has become her trademark on the Indiana Fever.

Though listed as a backup guard, in the course of the Storm's 2004 championship run Bevilaqua played unusually long minutes. This was most evident in the second game against the Minnesota Lynx. Sue Bird was injured early in the game, and WNBA Finals MVP Betty Lennox quickly got into foul trouble. Storm coach Anne Donovan sent Bevilaqua in to run the offense, and she played 27 minutes to carry the team to victory. The Seattle crowd chanted her name repeatedly during the game.


In the 2009 offseason, Tully is staying in Indiana, the home of the WNBA's Indiana Fever. In 2010, she revealed on her Facebook page that she is in a lesbian relationship with Lindsay Seifert.

Trivia

Bevilaqua played Australian rules football as a youth.

Her hobbies include: karaoke singing, golfing, tennis, cricket, and reading Patricia Cornwell's novels.

Bevilaqua's height is listed at 5'7" (about 170 cm) in the WNBA but only 164 cm (about 5'4.5") in the WNBL.

Bevilaqua writes a regular column in the Canberra Times on the progress of the Canberra Capitals during the 2006/07 WNBL season.

Bevilaqua helped launch women specific Nfinity Basketball Shoes in 2009 [1]

References

  1. ^ "Sport One Source". Retrieved 2009-05-21.
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