Nobody has lived and breathed the SBL or NBL1 West more than Mark Utley for 35 years and it has taken until 2024 for him to get the highlight he has earned himself by building a Mandurah Magic team to make a Grand Final – and he hopes it gets topped on Saturday night.
You won't find anyone who has dedicated his life to basketball in Western Australia more than Utley and there's no luck involved in the fact that he has been able to coach some of the best players to ever join the SBL or NBL1 West competition.
Utley might have a somewhat outlandish outward persona, but don't let that detract from the basketball mind he has and the time and effort he puts in to finding players to recruit any given season.
You can go back to the MVP's Cooper Land and Josh Braun that he signed to the Rockingham Flames and Eastern Suns respectively, or indeed Joel Murray and Michael Durr to the Magic this season.
He didn’t fall into those players, he had done the research, knew they would fit his role and system, and most importantly culture he was building.
As a result, Land along with his brother Taylor almost got the Flames to the promised land with Utley as coach and Braun was part of a Suns team that Utley got back to the finals but then lost not only him, but also gun big man Louis Timms for the finals match up with the top seeded Joondalup Wolves.
You only needed to look at the teams built at both Rockingham and Kalamunda to see what Utley was capable of creating, and it was only COVID that somewhat derailed what was building at the Suns.
What he has done with the Magic is nothing short of remarkable in the space of 18 months and the reward now is that he will be taking a first team to the Grand Final this Saturday night as Mandurah plays the Willetton Tigers at RAC Arena.
High point of last 35 years
There's nobody who has dedicated himself more to the SBL and NBL1 West than Utley. His journey started as a player with the then Stirling Senators back in 1990 with the rest of his career including stints at Mandurah and Geraldton before finishing up as a playing assistant coach with the Magic.
He racked up 289 games along the way and even made 201 three-pointers in that time and he proudly led his team on three-point attempts at least once.
But what Utley found even as a player was that he was a deep thinker about the game so it was only a natural that he moved into coaching.
That started in Mandurah as an assistant coach, then his first head coaching role came with the Rockingham Flames before a stint with the Magic women between 2010 and 2012.
It was back to coaching Rockingham's men for four years after that and then after two years without coaching, but still watching the league closely, Utley took over at the Eastern Suns and returned them to the playoffs in that 2019 season.
He was Coach of the Year in 2014 when at Rockingham, but what he has done at the Magic the past 18 months and to now reach the Grand Final is without doubt the high point of his time in the game.
Things at Mandurah off court were at a low ebb in the off-season coming into 2023 with Utley coming back as coach and by the time he took charge, bringing in players wasn’t really possible and the result was a two-win season.
However, it had sparked his passion to build something and the new culture was the start, and Julian Pesava was the first player on board while having captain Chad Miegel committed too was important.
Then Utley put his mind to work and his import signings Michael Durr and Joel Murray along with the additions of Jarrod Molnar, Corey Easley, Lachlan Bertram, Dion Collins and Jermaine Malie have been masterstrokes.
He couldn’t be prouder to now be coaching them in a Grand Final on Saturday night and he hopes that he has another career-best experience by the end of the contest.
"This is the high point for me, by a mile and where that comes from is the low point of last year," Utley said.
"Cliff Kearns was amazing to pick the entire club up, Chad Miegel my captain was with me the whole time all through the pre-season and those guys were the start of believing in the vision I had that we could do something here.
"It's my highlight, but hopefully there's another one on Saturday night and we can finish the job that we've started."
Joel Murray's belief to get to RAC Arena
The connection that Utley as coach has with his main playmaker Murray this season is similar to the bond he had with Taylor Land with Rockingham.
They are bonds that Utley isn’t sure how they form, and maybe it's opposites attracting or maybe it's that connection they share over their passion to compete or for success, but whatever it is, with Murray he is someone that Utley has the utmost faith and confidence in.
That's where recruiting the right players comes to the fore again. In order for Utley to put that faith into a player to run his team, he has to know he has all the right physical traits but mental aptitude, and with Murray it's a lot more than just the MVP level numbers he is delivering.
"I would never think of it except that I've got a little point guard who I would never back against and as soon as the league announced it, he told me that we're going to be there at RAC Arena," Utley said.
"He told me that we believe in that. Then on Sunday, even when we were down double-figures, he ran across to me and told me that we've got this and told me not to worry. That's the unbelievable part about Joel Murray is that he finds a way to put you in every game.
"He's really good, he is just an unbelievable leader for a guy playing his first season overseas. People also don’t know that he's a qualified civil engineer and he stayed on at school to finish that rather than go to the draft.
"I'm doing leadership courses and the books I have to read as a high school principal he has already read them because he's so motivated and driven. He's not here for any other reason than to win and we have become so close in our motivation to do something special together.
"I've always been lucky to have players who are driven, Taylor Land was driven, Cooper Land was so talented and so was Josh Braun, and Chris Stephens was an amazing scorer.
"But Joel Murray is all those things combined and he keeps telling me a six foot but I keep saying he sold me a dud because he's definitely not, but he doesn’t ever let anything get in his way."
Unique connection with every player
You would be hard pressed to find a player who hasn’t enjoyed playing under Utley at any point over the past 18 years.
That's because of the environment he tries to create, but also because he can put his faith in his players because he knows he has players to fit certain roles and the culture he's trying to have on his team.
"I'm a little bit weird, I'm a little bit unusual but the one thing I'll always say is that my players know that I've got this passion that goes all the way back to 1989," Utley said.
"Hopefully everyone can feel that passion that I have for the game and my family and everyone around me, even in my job, they can see how much I love basketball.
"Someone like Joel is a passionate guy too and he's a deep thinker, but Mike is a passionate guy as well and everyone lets that out in different ways. I'm an educator and a school principal, and every single person I come in contact with I want to have a relationship with that's positive wherever I am.
"That's probably testament to the teams that I've coached and the most important thing is that my mantra is that if we're not having fun, then there's no point doing it. People seem to like playing in that fun atmosphere."
Dream year after horrors of 2023
It's not just about the playing group for Utley either that makes this achievement of reaching a first ever men's Grand Final for Mandurah special either.
The club was on its knees in the off-season before the 2023 season, but a new board was put in place headed up by Cliff Kearns and Utley will forever be thankful for him and the directors around him for getting the Magic association as a whole back on track.
There were the obvious on-court pains of 2023 given Utley didn’t have the chance to put together that squad and was left to pick up the pieces, but what he did was set the footprints ultimately for the vision he wanted to build for 2024 and beyond.
"I'm super proud and there's a group of spectators, one of them is my next door neighbour who was with me at the Suns and Flames, and we sat back and he told me that I had unfinished business at home with Mandurah two years ago," Utley said.
"There is a whole group and community who loves this team, and it's got to do with the fact that everyone knows we have one of, if not the smallest, budgets in the league.
"But we've built a culture where people play beyond that and it's not about entitlement, it's about wanting to actually experience it. Last year I poured my heart out at the season wind up after a tough year where I came in late, and had no say in players really.
"Cliff Kearns at the club and I battled through last year and then from there I said that we needed support. My two managers came on board, Kylie Hewitt and Callie Djukic, who are on the board, and they are fantastic.
"I say they are the best recruits we ever got because they do everything for those boys, and then our chaplain Conor Stallard, she is so selfless and Mike is staying there. It's about the community getting behind this team that's really not had a chance.
"We had two wins last year but all these people have come on board to help me with this dream I had of getting 12 guys together with good culture that wanted to do something, and make a change. That's what we built and it's been a dream the way it's gone on this year."
More than just the two gun imports
It would be easy to take a look at this Mandurah team of 2024 and think that Utley got two outstanding imports and the rest has taken care of itself, but that would be disrespectful and not giving him the credit he deserves.
Clearly Joel Murray and Michael Durr are outstanding additions, but they were also available to any other club in the world but it was Utley that saw Murray as a guard he could put in charge of his team and who he saw Durr could be that strong seven-foot presence for him.
The result is Murray is the league's MVP and Durr is the Defensive Player of the Year, but even then those two players wouldn’t have been able to take Mandurah into a Grand Final without the pieces around them.
Lachlan Bertram was ready to give up on his NBL1 dream when Utley saw something in him to be a key role playing guard in the league, and Jermaine Malie had decided to retire before Utley coaxed him out of it having previously coached him at the Suns.
Julian Pesava was quick to jump on board seeing Utley's vision for the Magic too while Utley saw a role as a back up big for Dion Collins and when he wanted a leader who now has 333 games of experience, he could think of no one better than Corey Easley.
Jarrod Molnar is a knockdown shooter from Queensland that Utley couldn’t believe had been encouraged to not shoot, and all in all, the vision has come together wonderfully to get the Magic men to a first ever Grand Final.
"Last year at the awards wind up Julian Pesava, who I've known for years, put faith in a two-win team to say he wanted to be part what I wanted to build," Utley said.
"He wanted to come in to us and wanted to do the right thing, and then on Sunday, there was a play where he got three offensive rebounds at a time when they were up by 14 or 16. He just fought and fought and fought, and he was our first signing and has been huge.
"Then I got Jarrod Molnar and for whatever reason, coaches all over the country have told him to shoot and I can't understand why when he's got one of the best shots I've ever seen. So I told him to just find himself free and shoot the ball.
"Then we got Lachy Betram and I knew Jermaine had decided to retire, but I had coached him at Suns and told him he was too young to retire. If there was one person I chose to go to war with, it would be Jermaine and he's such an honest player who does what he can.
"Then Corey coming on board was all about the locker room. I wanted a guy who was that senior figure and it's been good with how it's come together. Mike and Joel were the finishing touches really and it's about what we've been able to build behind those guys."
