Ezi Magbegor’s success came early

At just 24, Magbegor has already seen plenty of success. In 2020, her first year in the WNBA, she helped the Seattle Storm win the championship. Playing for the WNBL in Australia, Magbegor’s Melbourne Boomers won the league’s Grand Final in 2022. She moved to the EuroLeague for the 2022-23 season; first playing for Sopron before moving to USK Prague. Her 2024 Prague team finished third in the league. Winning so much hasn’t dulled her hunger. It’s actually made her want to win even more.

“There’s always something more that you want to achieve. I think it’s important to yes, acknowledge what you have achieved in the past. But I think just being so young and there’s still so much I haven’t achieved when I look at, you know, other great basketball players. I’m fortunate enough to be with my national team. So that’s always like an achievement, like winning medals out of Olympic stage, on a World Cup stage. Just knowing that I’m still relatively young and I still have a lot more to give to the game and a lot more that I want to improve on my game, and I think that will help me with my career,” Magbegor said.

Noelle Quinn, her coach with the Storm, has been impressed with Magbegor’s demeanor on and off the court.

“The first thing I think about with Ezi is she’s an amazing person. To be so young, she has a lot of maturity about her. Her poise, her, her work ethic, her ability to connect with people. She’s special in that way. And then what she’s done on the court has steadily improved. This year in particular, she’s been very steady on both ends of the floor. Defensively, we know that she’s our anchor, and she’s always in the right spots and using her instincts and offensively, her skill set is continuing to grow,” Quinn said.

Ezi Magbegor hopes to bring her blocks to Paris 2024

At Tokyo 2020, Australia lost in the quarterfinals. The last time the Opals brought home a medal was at the Olympic Games London 2012. Magbegor wants to be part of the generation that helps get the Aussies back to the top of women’s basketball.

“Obviously with the national team, we want some kind of medal. I think it’s something we want to just do, just be back on the podium at an Olympic stage after not having the result we wanted to at the Tokyo Olympics. So just kind of building back to that,” she said.