Xavier Cooks (born 19 August 1995) is an Australian professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

player for the Sydney Kings of the National Basketball League (NBL). He played

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

for the

Winthrop Eagles The Winthrop Eagles are the intercollegiate athletics teams that represent Winthrop University, located in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Winthrop's 17 men's and women's teams compete at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I ...

, where he was named the 2018 Big South Conference Player of the Year. In 2022, he helped the Sydney Kings win the NBL championship while earning Grand Final MVP honours.

Early life

Cooks was born in Ballarat,

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

to father Eric and mother Josie. His father is an

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...

expatriate who became a naturalised citizen of Australia, and his mother is Australian. He was raised alongside siblings Georgia and Dominique, the latter of which formerly played professional basketball for the

Illawarra Hawks The Illawarra Hawks (formerly the Wollongong Hawks and The Hawks) is an Australian professional basketball team based in Wollongong, New South Wales. The Illawarra Hawks compete in the National Basketball League (NBL) and play their home game ...

. His father played college basketball for St. Mary's College in

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before relocating to Australia to pursue a professional career in the

South East Australian Basketball League The South East Australian Basketball League (SEABL) was an Australian semi-professional basketball league. The league comprised both a men's and women's competition and was run by the country's governing body, Basketball Australia. The league wa ...

(SEABL) and National Basketball League. The family moved to

Wollongong Wollongong ( ), colloquially referred to as The Gong, is a city located in the Illawarra region of New South Wales, Australia. The name is believed to originate from the Dharawal language, meaning either 'five islands/clouds', 'ground near wa ...

when Xavier was a young age as his father accepted an assistant coaching role with the Illawarra Hawks. Cooks attended Holy Spirit College.

College career

He chose to attend Winthrop over offers from schools such as

UC Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the U ...

, Boise State,

Hartford Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since t ...

Maine Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and ...

, and Nicholls State. WU vs VCU

On 15 February 2017, Cooks recorded the first 20-point, 20-rebound game for Winthrop since 2003. At the close of the season, he was named first-team All- Big South Conference. In 2017, Cooks was named to the Australian "Emerging Boomers" squad for the

2017 Summer Universiade The 2017 Summer Universiade (), officially known as the XXIX Summer Universiade ( zh, t=第二十九屆夏季世界大學運動會, p=Dì èrshíjiǔ jiè xiàjì shìjiè dàxué yùndònghuì) and commonly called Taipei 2017 ( zh, t=台北2 ...

. In the 2017–18 season, senior Cooks became Winthrop's all-time leading rebounder. At the close of the Big South regular season, Cooks was again named first-team All-Big South and the Big South Player of the Year. In 2020, two years after graduating from Winthrop, he was voted into the Big South Men's Basketball All-Decade Team (2010-19).

Professional career

After going undrafted in the 2018 NBA draft, Cooks joined the Golden State Warriors for the 2018 NBA Summer League. On 27 July 2018 Cooks signed with S.Oliver Würzburg. Cooks joined the Phoenix Suns for the

2019 NBA Summer League The 2019 NBA Summer League was held at the Thomas and Mack Center and Cox Pavilion in Las Vegas, Nevada on the campus of University of Nevada, Las Vegas. It began on July 5 and ended on July 15. All 30 teams and two national teams, China and Croat ...

. In July 2019, Cooks signed with

SIG Strasbourg Strasbourg Illkirch-Graffenstaden Basket, most commonly known as SIG Basket or SIG Strasbourg, is a French professional basketball club that is based in Strasbourg. The club, founded in 1929, competes domestically in the French Pro A League, and ...

of the French LNB Pro A league. On 7 August Cooks was injured at training and was later released from SIG Strasbourg. On 27 November 2019 Cooks signed with the Sydney Kings of the Australian NBL on a multi-year deal. He opted out of his contract with the Kings on 2 May 2020 due to the salary cuts that were implemented by the NBL to protect the league during the

coronavirus pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identifie ...

. After exploring his options, on 7 July 2020 Cooks re-signed with the Kings on a one-year deal. He averaged 10.3 points, 5.1 rebounds, and 2.5 assists per game during the 2020–21 season. On 30 June 2021, Cooks re-signed with the Kings for the

2021–22 NBL season The 2021–22 NBL season was the 44th season of the National Basketball League since its establishment in 1979. A total of ten teams are contesting in the 2021–22 season, which commenced on 3 December 2021. Australian broadcast rights to the ...

. He helped the Kings win the 2022 NBL championship while earning Grand Final MVP honours. On 18 May 2022, Cooks signed with the

Wellington Saints The Wellington Saints are a New Zealand basketball team based in Wellington. The Saints compete in the National Basketball League (NBL) and play their home games at TSB Bank Arena. Team history The Wellington Saints were founded in 1981. In 1 ...

for the rest of the 2022 New Zealand NBL season.

National team career

In early August 2019, Cooks made the final cut for Australia's

2019 FIBA World Cup The 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup was the 18th tournament of the FIBA Basketball World Cup for men's national basketball teams. The tournament was hosted in China and was rescheduled from 2018 to 2019, becoming the first since 1967 FIBA World Ch ...

roster. However, one week later he was forced to withdraw from the competition due to a knee injury sustained during practice.

References

External links

Winthrop Eagles bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cooks, Xavier 1995 births Living people Australian people of African-American descent Australian expatriate basketball people in Germany Australian expatriate basketball people in the United States Australian Institute of Sport basketball players Australian men's basketball players Basketball players from New South Wales Power forwards (basketball) S.Oliver Würzburg players Sportspeople from Wollongong Sydney Kings players Wellington Saints players Winthrop Eagles men's basketball players