Blanchett's basketball passion gets him to 250

Featured image: @hyperfocusimages | Michael Bailey

Ryan Blanchett has always played with infectious passion whether in tough times at Eastern Suns, championships at Geraldton Buccaneers or now in first NBL1 West season at Mandurah Magic, and he's still enjoying basketball as much as ever ahead of game 250.

Blanchett played his first SBL games back in 2015 while still a teenager at the Eastern Suns having been a junior there, and that's where he would play the first 143 matches of his career.

His teaching career then meant a move to Geraldton was on the cards in 2022. It just happened to be that they've got quite the handy basketball team and he has been playing with the Buccaneers the past four seasons.

That saw Blanchett be part of the 2023 and 2025 championships with the Buccs, play in the 2022 Grand Final loss and then in the shock preliminary final loss at Active West Stadium in 2024 to the Willetton Tigers.

It was a great contrast in team success from what he had experienced early on at Kalamunda to Geraldton, but now life has brought him and wife Jaimee to Mandurah where again he's continuing in a new teaching role and joined the Magic to reunite with coach Mark Utley.

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Whether or not wins were rare in most of those seasons with the Suns or indeed so far in 2026 with the Magic, or with four contending seasons with the Buccaneers, what's never changed is Blanchett's infectious energy, his uplifting personality and his passion for basketball.

Now he will celebrate his 250th game in the SBL and NBL1 West on Saturday night when the Magic play host to the Goldfields Giants.

What stands out to the 30-year-old now above everything is that love of the game.

"I'm still no closer to figuring out why I like playing basketball so much and if there is some grand plan idea behind the whole thing, but at the end of the day everyone says they love playing basketball," told The Hoop Hour on 91.3 SportFM.

"The whole time I've played whether I was winning or losing games, or winning championships or losing Grand Finals, or playing 30 minutes or five minutes, one thing that has stayed constant that I actually love to play basketball.

"I love the feeling of shooting the ball and the feeling of the ball in your hands. If you take away everything else and you just have those things, it would be enough and that's what I will reflect on really.

"Of course there's the moments when you win championships and lose championships that teach you a lot about life and how you respond to situations, but when you look at basketball through that lens, you enjoy it far more than you ever would if you base it on how many points you score or minutes you play."

Still enjoying basketball

The Mandurah season in 2026 hasn’t quite gone to plan just yet with them currently at 4-11 and with plenty of work to do if they want to make the finals for a third straight season, but Blanchett is still happy with the move.

Life brought him to Mandurah anyway, but then there was the bonus to reconnect with his former Kalamunda coach Utley with the Magic.

He's enjoying getting to start to create a new basketball home for himself.

"I'm still enjoying basketball at the end of the day and this season has taught me a lot personally going from a different environment to what it was like in Geraldton," Blanchett said.

"Particularly with where we're at, we're facing some challenges at the moment but I am still really enjoying playing still and trying to be as much of a leader as I can.

"I'm really enjoying getting to know a new group of guys and playing for Mark again, and he's quite an eclectic fellow so it's been really nice to spend some more time around him. I'm really still enjoying and Mandurah's a great place, and I'm happy I moved here."

Can still make a run in 2026

Early doors this season for Mandurah and they always knew it would tough while awaiting the arrival of key trio Matt Kenyon, Michael Christmas and Michael Dupree.

That was good news for Blanchett as he played over 30 minutes in each of the first six games and scored at least 12 points in each of them and had no less than three rebounds in any either.

The Magic did end up losing the opening six games but then suddenly with Kenyon, Christmas and Dupree in the line-up, they looked capable of anything.

The problem is it never lasted long and Kenyon now hasn’t played since May 9 while Jock Perry has been out the past two weeks with a back injury and Michael Dupree injured a hamstring against the Lakeside Lightning on June 6.

That means at 4-11 that Mandurah have plenty of work to do starting this Saturday at home to the Giants, but Blanchett isn't giving up hope.

"I won't say it's not going to happen for us until we're mathematically eliminated and we're really still in a positive frame of mind going into the next seven games," Blanchett said.

"I've never really had a season where you just never really felt like it clicked at any point and you just have to trust that it will happen.

"Once everyone's healthy we'll be fine and those first five games, they were good for me personally and I think for Lachy (Bertram) as well just to get settled in and be around Jock a bit more.

"We played some really good basketball but just were unlucky in a couple of games there but not having players is no excuse for us and that's one thing Mark will tell you.

"We didn’t play well enough to win those games and definitely could have done things better, but over the next couple of weeks every game is now pretty much a playoff game where if we lose one or two more it's pretty much elimination.

"We just have to continue to play with that urgency and trust when those guys do come back that we'll be fine."

Playing under coach Utley once again

The closest the Suns came to success when Blanchett was there was when Utley was coach including a breakthrough playoff appearance in 2019.

So when the opportunity came up again for Blanchett to reconnect with Utley and play under him once more at the Magic, he was never going to pass up the opportunity with perhaps the only man to have been involved in every single SBL/NBL1 West season in one way or another dating back to 1989.

"He's still not funny is the first thing I'd say about him and over all these years his sense of humour hasn’t gotten any better. He's still the same dry, old bloke that he always was and I'm just joking by the way if anyone can't tell," Blanchett said.

"I think the thing that's never changed with him is that we're aligned in a lot of ways with the love of the game. He's coached and played in 700 games or something close to that and we just really love the game as much as each other, and I really enjoy being honest around him.

"I think he likes it when people are honest with him because he's honest with everyone else. That means we can just sit on the same page and communicate well, and talk about what needs to be done.

"Then as I've gotten older I've learned to communicate a bit better as well so that's been one of the biggest things from me dealing with him now to when we were at the Suns, but the love of the game has been constant."

Adjusting to different roles

Throughout his career, Blanchett's role and opportunity on his teams have greatly fluctuated but by the time he left the Eastern Suns at the end of 2021, he was regularly playing well over 20 minutes a game and was fresh off a season with 11.1 points and 5.3 rebounds on 34 per cent three-point shooting.

While he was part of great success at the Buccaneers over the past four years, the closest he got to averaging 20 minutes a game again was his first season in 2022 with 17.2 per appearance for 8.2 points and 3.6 rebounds.

All the numbers were significantly lower after that, but while the team was winning and Blanchett understood where he sat in the rotation, he just made sure he was the ultimate teammate.

Nobody that's ever played with him now over 249 games would ever doubt that he's done that, but he's also enjoyed his extra role this season at the Magic when Perry, Kenyon, Dupree and Christmas have been unavailable.

"I think over the first five games when we knew what my role was going to be it was good to just get the ability to play and not have to worry about making a mistake or where you fit in the offence," Blanchett said.

"You could just go out there and play freely, and take shots, and you might shoot a few bad ones, but you're going to be out there playing anyway.

"I think that did wonders for my confidence but I think when we're fully healthy my role is pretty similar to what it was the last couple of years at Geraldton.

"One thing that remains constant is just being a leader for young guys and trying to keep positive, and keep standards to where they need to be. So really some things change, but a lot of it stays the same I guess."

Experience at RAC Arena

While Blanchett had already played in two Grand Finals previously for the loss with Geraldton to the Rockingham Flames in 2022 and then win against the Joondalup Wolves in 2023, both were played at Bendat Basketball Centre.

The Buccaneers were the dominant team of 2024 all season but then lost at home in the preliminary final to miss out on playing in the first Grand Final at RAC Arena which ultimately would be won by the Mandurah Magic.

Geraldton and Blanchett made up for that by not only playing in last year's Grand Final at RAC Arena against the Warwick Senators, but winning and he made sure he took in the whole experience the best he could.

"It was pretty incredible and I had a play a game in RAC many, many years ago with the Wildcats Academy when we played a game against the Perry Lakes guys, so I had been in there and played before but this was totally different," Blanchett said.

"We went in there for shootaround and they had the jumbo tron on and were getting ready, and it was pretty surreal. There was probably a moment there where I stopped and took it all in, and it was pretty loud in there.

"I don’t know how the NBL guys do it and it wasn’t even full, but it was that loud and I'm so glad that us here in the West actually get to have that as a staple of our league.

"There's no other league that plays in front of that many people in that kind of environment, and there's a lot of young kids out there who see things like that and it makes them aspire to want to go and do it themselves."

Dealing with basketball-work-life balance

Working full-time, trying to keep up something of a social life and a happy home life with a wife, and then keeping sharp in a basketball sense so you can compete with professional athletes is something that Blanchett would never describe as easy.

It takes enormous dedication, time management and you have to love what you're doing, but for Blanchett it helps having a wife who also played the game with Jaymee playing 48 SBL games herself back with the Eastern Suns between 2014-17.

"Everyone deals with it differently and most of us have got jobs, and have to come home from the 9-5 and maybe you get the work in before work, and then have to go to practice at night," Blanchett said.

"The off-season is quite long as well, but it's easy to juggle when you love it and you get support from home.

"Jaymee, my wife, has been very supportive the whole time and because she used to play at the Suns as well, she has a great understanding of the game and my mental space I'm in because of it.

"So it's very easy when you've got a lot of support and I'm very thankful for that support. That's helped me play this many games I suppose."