AIDAN O’SHEA WILL spend the winter honing his handling skills on the basketball court after EJ’s Sligo All-Stars announced they’ve signed the 26-year-old Mayo star.
An avid basketball fan, O’Shea hasn’t played on the hardcourt since he featured for St Declan’s basketball club in Dublin in 2009. He also played schools basketball in Castlebar.
The 6’4″ talent took a full-part in the All-Stars’ practice yesterday and is set to play in their National League Division One trip to the Dublin Lions on Sunday.
“I always played basketball as a young fella and I was mad into it,” he told Ocean FM. “I probably played up until I was 18 when I left school and I played a small bit in Dublin when I went to college.
“I haven’t really played since obviously because football has kind of taken over.
“I met Shane [O'Meara, Sligo coach] last year just by chance and he was obviously telling me about Sligo All-Stars. As the summer wore on this year, I knew there was going to be no International Rules and the club was over as well.”
O’Shea added: “Over the weekend I got a bit bored. It was the first weekend I had off all year and I had a thought. I said I’d message him and see if I could just come along and train to be honest.
“I came with zero expectations. I enjoy playing basketball and I’m grateful for Shane for letting me to go train.”
The Breaffy clubman follows Mayo legends Ronan McGarrity and Liam McHale in representing Sligo at basketball.
“I’m not nervous about going back – though Ronan is here too so I’m sure there’ll be a lot of slagging! I’m really happy to be back but I don’t have any great expectations of myself – I’ll just see how it goes.
“I might rope a few more of the Mayo lads into it too, football skills transfer very well over to basketball so I might get a few more to Sligo – you never know!”
O’Shea is known to watch highlights of Cleveland Cavaliers small forward LeBron James on his phone to get in the right mindset before football games.
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