Nevriye Yılmaz

Nevriye Yılmaz — Biography

Nevriye Yılmaz was the first Turkish basketball player to play in the WNBA and is one of the most accomplished names in Turkish women's basketball. She played power forward and centre, won ten Turkish Women's Basketball Super League titles in all and captained the national team that took silver at EuroBasket Women 2011. She retired as a player on 23 October 2016 and moved into coaching.

She moved from Bulgaria to Istanbul with her family at the age of nine and took up basketball in 1992 in the Istanbul University youth set-up. In 1997 she won the World High School Championship with Boğaziçi Lisesi and the same year took silver with the national team at the Mediterranean Games. After a first title at Galatasaray she went to Greece and Italy, and played in the WNBA for the Phoenix Mercury in 2003 and the San Antonio Silver Stars in 2004. Back at Fenerbahçe from 2005, she won seven league titles in seven seasons, four Turkish Cups and three Presidential Cups. At Galatasaray from 2012 she became EuroLeague Women champion in 2013-14 and added two more league titles and two cups.

With the national team she won gold at the 2005 Mediterranean Games and the same year was the rebounding leader at EuroBasket Women. In 2011 she was named to the all-tournament five, and in 2013 she took bronze. She played at the 2012 London and 2016 Rio Olympics, Rio being the last tournament of her career. After retiring she worked as an assistant coach at Galatasaray and later became head coach of the Turkey under-18 girls' national team.