Amarco highlights NBL1 pathway to NBL

Featured image: Cairns Basketball

Right now all Amarco Doyle is focused on is trying to make history in the NBL1 North with the Cairns Marlins under Joel Khalu, but in the bigger picture he continues to embrace his First Nations heritage as he prepares for a first NBL season at the Illawarra Hawks.

The 21-year-old versatile 6'7 forward has already enjoyed tremendous success in the NBL1 North as part of the 2024 championship team with the Mackay Meteors that was coached by Khalu and featured his current Cairns teammate Luca Yates along with Isaac White and Todd Blanchfield.

He has now joined the Cairns Marlins this 2026 season largely on the back of again wanting to achieve more success under Khalu and not only has been key to them remaining undefeated at 14-0, but it's also led him to an NBL opportunity.

Not only is Khalu the head coach for Doyle with the Marlins in the NBL1 North, but he's also an assistant coach at the Illawarra Hawks here he will be now plying his trade having signed on ahead of NBL27.

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While there's plenty else for Doyle to have his mind occupied with including celebrating the NBL1 First Nations Round, having just been part of the Indigenous Basketball Australia All Stars for a third time and thinking ahead to his first NBL opportunity.

But his immediately focus is on the NBL1 North season with the Marlins and with them currently sitting at 14-0 with two games in the regular season to go, he wants to be part of them making history by continuing their undefeated ways.

"It would be insane, you know, if we're able to be the first team ever to finish undefeated in NBL1 North so we would make history," Doyle said.

"We've already gone 8-0 on the road which is the first time ever in the NBL1 North so we're excited to have done that but now we can't drop one.

"We have to keep level headed, stick to what we do and stay confident and get the job done."

Big Friday night clash with Logan

And in the even more immediate future, Doyle and the Marlins will be putting their undefeated record on the line this Friday night at home against the visiting Logan Thunder.

That's a Logan team sitting third at 10-3 and featuring Shaun Bruce, Cal Dalton and Zac Triplett, and Doyle is looking forward to the challenge.

"I honestly can't wait for the game and we're undefeated still, and we want to finish strong as well," Doyle said.

"Logan's one of those games who have tough talent and are a tough team so we've just got to stay strong you know, stay together and do what we can to come away with the win and hopefully stay undefeated for the season before leading into finals."

Thinking behind move to Cairns

As for what brought Doyle to Cairns in 2026, it was pretty simple and when he finished his college season with New Mexico State earlier in the year and he reconnected with his Mackay championship coach Khalu.

Having started out with the North Gold Coast Seahawks back in 2022, then playing with Mackay in both the 2023 and 2024 seasons, and then going to the NBL1 South with the Mount Gambier Pioneers in 2025, Doyle was open to anything.

But playing under Khalu again was too good of an opportunity to pass up especially with Kobe McDowell-White and Luca Yates on board as well along Kody and Ky Stattmann.

"I was just finishing off my college season at New Mexico State and I wasn’t planning too much when I was over there so I didn’t know what was next for me," Doyle said.

"I was playing for Joel back in 2024 when we won with Mackay and I kinda just let him know that I was coming back and that I'd love to play, and be on a winning team again and chase championship.

"That's what he does, he's a winner and just brings around good people that win. So that was really the main reason as to why I came up to Cairns, you know, and obviously playing with guys I grew up playing with like Kobe McDowell-White and Luca Yates is great too.

"So I knew we had the talent for it as well and that was the main reason I came up here."

Sharing front court again with Luca

Speaking of Yates, he and Doyle shared a championship together with Mackay back in 2024 and now are forming quite the imposing front court pairing with the Marlins in 2026.

Between them, they are averaging 36.6 points and 16.2 rebounds a game, and Doyle couldn’t be happier to be back playing with him again this season.

"It's just great, you know, playing with him and we don't even have to say anything to each other, we just know what we're gonna do and where we're going to be on the court," he said.

"That's just another thing with this team, we have such great chemistry off the court as well and it just correlates in games as well with the way we're playing."

The journey to an NBL opportunity

Doyle is a tremendous example of what rewards can be on offer for someone that comes through the NBL1 pathway to end up earning an NBL opportunity.

His first NBL1 North opportunity came close to home with the Seahawks and since then he's done plenty of moving around with two years with Mackay, one at Mount Gambier and now a first with Cairns.

In between, he spent a season in junior college at the College of Southern Idaho before most recently having that season at New Mexico State University before coming to Cairns and reconnecting with Khalu and other familiar faces.

"It's pretty crazy to be honest and it didn’t really hit me and it probably took me a week to soak in, and then it finally hit me," Doyle said.

"It's just been a long journey and I was kinda on and off or not about if I wanted to go to college or not after that 2024 year, but I ended up deciding to go to a JUCO and I did really well there.

"I ended up signing up to New Mexico after that and I also played an NBL1 season down in Mount Gambier in the meantime and unfortunately I got hurt towards the end of that.

"I did my MCL and I kinda had a decision if I wait around for the NBL1 season or do I go back to college. New Mexico State came up pretty late for me and I thought I needed to get something in and needed to recover to get back to where I was at.

"New Mexico helped me do that and got me back on my feet and obviously I didn’t get to play too much unfortunately, but I still got to work with the guys over there and the organisation that's such a high level in Division 1.

"Then from that, Joel reached out and was pretty excited to have me on board here in Cairns and I was glad I was able to come back to do what I do."

Being part of Indigenous Basketball Australia All Stars

For the past three years now and Doyle has embraced his Aboriginal heritage by being part of the Indigenous Basketball Australia All Stars teams that have been playing on an annual basis against a Maori representative team from New Zealand.

After the game was held down in Melbourne last year, it was in Cairns earlier this week and Doyle was proud and excited to be part of the whole thing even if he did have to sit out the game on Tuesday night.

"It was an amazing experience, you know, and obviously we all come from different parts of Australia so it's great just being able to catch up together," Doyle said.

"Everyone has their own season in different leagues in the NBL1 and it's always great catching up to see how everyone's doing, and just having that real connection and brotherhood.

"That's really great especially with our culture around that and a lot of us also didn’t know too much about our culture growing up or some of us might have been distant.

"So just really coming together and talking about it, and seeing the dancers and even learning about the Maori side of it was really beautiful."

Proud of Heritage

While Doyle was probably closer to his Greek heritage than his Aboriginal side when he was growing up, the older he has gotten the more he has embraced that other side of the culture.

That's where something now like the First Nations Round across the NBL1 and the experiences with the IBA All Stars means the world to him in so many ways.

"I definitely am proud of it and I'm Greek as well so I’m Greek and Aboriginal, and growing up I was kinda closer to my Greek side," Doyle said.

"But now that I'm older I'm really proud to be a part of this sort of thing and to learn more about my Indigenous side. I like to show it off of course and that's who I am so I'm very proud of that."

Calling Johny Narkle a teammate now

In a lot of ways the journey of Doyle to an NBL opportunity mirrors that of Johny Narkle on the other side of the country who won two championships with two Grand Final MVP awards at the Geraldton Buccaneers.

That earned him a chance last season as a development player in the NBL at the Hawks and now he has been upgraded to a full roster spot in NBL27 where he'll be a teammate to Doyle.

The pair have also bonded through the past three years with their time in the IBA All Stars teams as well.

"It's honestly crazy to think about and if it wasn’t for the Indigenous All Stars I probably wouldn’t even know who Johny Narkle is aside from what I see him doing on the NBL1 page," Doyle said.

"So that bridge of the All Stars has been amazing, you know, and we've been able to connect with Indigenous players literally across Australia and I've gotten to know Johny pretty well now with the three years that we've been doing it together.

"It's exciting now to be teammates with him and I can't wait to get down there and play with him."