Former National Championship-winning coach and NBL1 South Coach of the Year, Mark Alabakov will take on a new challenge this season, signing with the Sandringham Sabres.
Alabakov has arguably one of the best resumes in state basketball - with the Bendigo Braves, he made an NBL1 South Grand Final appearance in 2022, a conference and national championship in 2023, a 33-0 record across 2023-2024, and a national championship runner-up in 2024.
HISTORICAL DOMINANCE ?
The Bendigo Braves are on a 3?3?-0? win streak ?
How long can they maintain this undefeated streak? Find out tonight against Sandringham from 5:00pm AEST Live & Free via Kayo Freebies ? pic.twitter.com/RzPnXJi6Pj
While Bendigo’s undefeated streak was ironically broken by Sandringham last season, Alabakov cannot wait to bring his expertise to the Sabres for 2025.
“(It’s an) opportunity for me to evolve my craft as a coach and joining a club with a wonderful foundation in the NBL1 core, the emerging Sabres in Big V Youth League. It’s a really exciting crop of juniors coming through that stability, alignment and a clear program identity will amplify,” he told NBL1 Media.
“To engineer and build the ground floor of a perennial contender, (we’ll do this) by aligning the senior program and establishing a culture and identity, and most importantly creating a real and tangible pathway for players in the program, and become a destination club for emerging and current high-level women’s players to elevate their game in.”
Considering the accolades and achievements he left Bendigo with, Alabakov plans to bring across some of his key philosophies to ensure success will follow. He broke it down into four key areas: competence, trustworthiness, reliability and consistency.
The most prominent of these was ‘reliable’, becoming the team’s mantra and eventually being immortalised and etched into their championship rings.
“The most important sentiment that became our mantra for our group in Bendigo was ‘aim to be reliable, not remarkable’,” he said.
“It’s in the pursuit of the consistency of the ordinary things that happen most, and being relentlessly reliable and ruggedly flexible to achieve them, that the extraordinary can be achieved.”
The Sabres have been teetering on success the past few seasons, making back-to-back finals runs the past two seasons. With a new approach, Alabakov explained how he plans to optimise the Sabres core, particularly focusing on their defensive and transitional play.
“The alignment, culture and identity aside, I think there’s some big areas of impact that present growth opportunities on-court,” he said.
“For a group that had long periods in the upper tier of the ladder, there are plenty of areas of growth that can elicit further spikes in performance and breakthroughs to the next level.”
After five years within the Bendigo programs, switching to a new side has taken an adjustment. Going from scouting against the Sabres to now trying to enhance them, Alabakov explained who has caught his eyes thus far.
“The truthful, yet ‘cop out’ answer is everyone, because everyone is brand new to me in their current context,” he said.
“I’ve really enjoyed being in the trenches and witnessing and working with the IQ of Eilidh Vanderwhal, the intangibles of Keely Frawley, the coachability of Emma Nankervis, and the versatility of Klara Wischer, so far.”
Sandringham won't play the Braves until the last game of the season, leaving a lot of time for both sides to prepare for what should be a finals preview.
The NBL1 South season will start on March 29th.
