United captain's great appreciation for NBL1

Featured image: Ian Knight Photography

Captaining Melbourne United in the NBL for the first time was a moment for Kyle Bowen to reflect on how far he's come from being a teenager on a Perth Redbacks championship team and he'll always be thankful for the NBL1 pathway.

If you rewind almost a decade and a 16-year-old Bowen was a young star on the rise playing on a star studded NBL1 West (then SBL) team at the Perth Redbacks and would go on to be a key part of their championship triumph under coach Nik Lackovic.

That was a team featuring recently retired Perth Wildcats legend Shawn Redhage along with fellow former NBL players Michael Vigor and Joel Wagner, future NBL players Marshall Nelson and Zac Gattorna, and with Grand Final MVP Lee Roberts who remains a stalwart in the NBL1 West.

A lot of water has gone under the bridge for Bowen since then including spending four years in college where he continued the rich Australian history at Saint Mary's College.

An NBL future then always looked to be his future and ever since he has become a mainstay at Melbourne United including being an important contributor on teams that made consecutive Championship Series' in NBL24 and NBL25 only to lose in back-to-back Game 5s.

Through everything that Bowen has now done in the NBL and also playing with the Australian Boomers, he hasn’t forgotten where he has come from and continues to play in the NBL1 through the off-season.

While he hasn’t quite made it back home to play in the NBL1 West again, Bowen has been a regular in recent years in the NBL1 South at the Knox Raiders in 2024 and then joining the defending champion Sandringham Sabres in 2026.

That included him starring on the Sunshine Coast when Knox won a second straight NBL1 National Championship where he was named Championship Game MVP.

So given where he got his start as a teenager at the Redbacks and now continuing to play in the NBL1 South while signed at United in the NBL, he'll always be supportive of the NBL1 and appreciative of it for helping him get to where he is.

"I've got a great appreciation for the NBL1 and the Australian system in general," Bowen said following United's win in Adelaide over the 36ers last Wednesday night with him as captain for the first time.

"I think it puts guys like me in great positions and it's great to see young guys coming up and representing NBL teams and themselves well. It's always pleasing to share the court with those guys."

If you rewind a decade and Bowen made his SBL debut with his local Perth Redbacks team as a 15-year-old. Then by 2017, he returned for the back end of that season and would end up playing a more than handy role in the eventual championship.

On Grand Final night when the Redbacks beat the Joondalup Wolves, Bowen chipped in with five points including an and-one play in his eight minutes as he became a championship winner while still in high school.

It was a night where Roberts had 28 points and 17 rebounds, Redhage 20 points, six rebounds and six assists, Nelson 17 points and four assists, and veteran guard Ben Smith 14 points with four triples.

It's a night he still has fond memories of despite how much has now happened in his basketball journey since, but if you told him then he would be captain at Melbourne United, he'd never have believed it.

Even less so if he knew that was a Melbourne team featuring Joe Ingles, Cole Anthony, Shea Ili, Fabijan Krslovic, Tom Wilson, Sam Waardenburg, and fellow Western Australian Luke Travers.

But it was a proud moment for him afterwards to have captained United for the first time to the win in Adelaide before to avoid a third straight defeat.

"If you told me that night all those years ago that I would be captaining Joe Ingles and Cole Anthony I would have told you that you were kidding yourself," Bowen said.

"I think just because I've got the captain next to my name for this game, it doesn’t mean I was the only leader out there and we've got so many great leaders that drive our program every single day.

"You guys don't see a lot of that so while I kinda did have the C next to my name, I could go through the list and name three or four other guys that were just as impactful in that leadership of the game.

"I'm super proud to have been captain and hopefully we can keep the wins coming now."

Bowen continues to be an important piece for Melbourne in NBL27 coming off the bench and he had a crucial eight points in that win against Adelaide when he was captain.

Ili also came off the bench in that win for six assists while Ingles scored 11 points to go with four rebound sand four assists with Wilson adding seven points, and Krslovic four with three rebounds.

It's that depth that United possess that Bowen sees as one of their great weapons moving forward as they look for a third straight win this Sunday against the Illawarra Hawks at John Cain Arena.

"Our bench is always like a key aspect of our group and the talent on our roster if you go through the list it's always there," Bowen said.

"I mean the buzzword all year for us was urgency and obviously we wanted our starting group to come out and hit first, and set the tone but that bench unit coming in kind of one or two at a time is always such an important piece for us.

"You go down the list and you watch it back, and individual guys made huge plays all night that secured us the win."