Mayen gives Eagles unexpected huge boost

Image credit: Mark Filpo (@codexdesignstudio)

Carl Filpo was pleasantly delighted when he got an unexpected yes on asking Perth Wildcats forward Lat Mayen to join the East Perth Eagles in NBL1 West after he felt his team didn’t follow the scout in Round 1.

It wasn’t the start to the new season that Filpo was hoping for with the 14-point road defeat to the Willetton Tigers on Saturday night, but he is hoping the Eagles can quickly put that behind them.

To help that cause is the boost they have received this week with the signing of Wildcats NBL forward Mayen who was on hand to be part of his first practice session on Tuesday night, and will line-up in the home opener this Saturday against the Mandurah Magic.

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Mayen has now played more than 100 NBL games across the Cairns Taipans, Adelaide 36ers and Wildcats where he's shown himself someone who can play impressive defensive roles while being able to knock down the outside shot, be a slasher, and indeed quite the menace.

He also had a brilliant 2025 NBL1 Central season leading the West Adelaide Bearcats to a championship ahead of coming to Perth for a first season with the Wildcats.

Filpo couldn’t be happier with the unexpected surprise of adding him for the rest of the 2026 NBL1 West season.

"I wasn’t expecting it and it wasn’t in the plan, and I'd looked at it early in the piece and at that stage Lat is more focused on NBL and what he was doing there so I left it alone, but here we are," Filpo said.

"Up until Sunday, it wasn’t in the plan but we had a chat with Lat on the weekend and he was pretty keen to come play for us and we were pretty keen to have him so it was a good marry up there.

"We've got a couple of injuries at the moment and obviously Jonah's away for the weekend so it's probably good timing to be able to bring him in.

"We've had a few chats and he's a really good cultural fit, he's obviously super talented and we're excited to have him.

"He fills a spot but we do still have an import spot and whether we exercise it and go with that remains to be seen, but for now this is our team and this is who we've got and I'm pretty happy with it."

Looking back on Saturday night's season opener for East Perth against Willetton on the road, while there were positives for him to take out of it, overall it was disappointment that Filpo's overriding emotion upon reflection.

"There was disappointment and there was lots of stuff that we did prepare for, but didn’t execute on the night," Filpo said.

"We got a bad start and chased our tail the whole game, and had Sharif go down pretty early as well which messed up a few of our plans at the same time.

"At the end of the day, defensively we weren’t there especially in transition and we missed a lot of easy ones, a lot of bunnies that went in and out or just missed layups. I think I counted 12 so that was something I wasn’t expecting."

It was a bad start from the Eagles but they did have the momentum going into half-time and just a five-point deficit, only to again let it blow out when the Tigers dominated the start to the second half.

Coming back again was a bridge too far for East Perth in the finish and when Filpo continued to see the Tigers doing what they had scouted for, it led to a frustrating night.

"We went into half-time thinking we couldn’t play any worse and we were only down five so we felt pretty good about it, and we said we needed to focus on making a great start," Filpo said.

"I think what happened was that it went how the scout said it would, Damien Scott did what he does, Andrew Black hit a couple of threes in his corner, and we talked about all those things before the game but we let it happen to us.

"So we found ourselves chasing our tail again early in the second half and had to extend minutes on guys we wanted to give a rest to because we had to stick with who thought would give us the best chance.

"But they stretched it out again and it was chasing our tail with a bad start, bad start after half-time and we were a bit out of sorts."

While it wasn’t the night Filpo was hoping for, it doesn’t mean there wasn’t positives including what another Wildcats big man, David Okwera, produced.

Coming off the best NBL season of his career, he was tremendous for East Perth on his return after first playing with the Eagles in 2024.

He finished with 25 points, 11 rebounds, six assists and at least five blocks while new guard and Boise State alum Bing Huang showed good signs especially attacking the basket in his 19 minutes for 14 points, four rebounds and two steals.

"Bing had a great game and he can score it," Filpo said.

"He's quick and he likes to take it to the bucket and he can shoot it even though he didn’t really shoot many threes on the night, but he can definitely get to the rim so we were really happy with what he showed.

"We were happy with Dave obviously and the amount of blocked shots he had, I know the stats said six but he got ripped off at least one more too, and he was pretty impressive.

"Him coming downhill in the full court was something we hadn’t seen for a couple of years down here so we were really rapt to see that as well."