FROM the moment Marlou Swanepoel picked up a basketball in 2020, it was love at first bounce, and when he started high school, he was already clear in his mind that whichever school he went to, it had to have his newfound love.
The Pretoria Boys High School pupil and DUEP player has big dreams, has already tasted success in his young career, and feels those wins are signs that basketball has a lot more to offer. Having won the MVP title at the recent Africa Hoops Grassroots Youth Classic Tournament, Swanepoel, who is from South Africa’s Gauteng province, hopes performing on the court and achieving good grades will help him realise his dreams.
“I think it’s vital. It’s really good. Finishing matric, getting this exposure, it’s really helpful for a person who wants to take basketball seriously and go overseas with it… Getting this recognition really helps. It gets my profile out there, and they see who I am as a basketball player and a person,” said Swanepoel, who took up basketball during the lockdown period of the COVID-19 pandemic.
After getting hooked on hoops, he traded in his goalkeeping gloves for a basketball, and he has not looked back. And when he started High School, the preferred institution had to, of course, have basketball.
“I started to develop my love for basketball during COVID at home in 2020 when I had nothing to do. We had a hoop at home, and I started playing in our driveway, and it grew on me,” said Swanepoel. “I wanted to go to a school that has basketball, and my parents would always tease me that they would send me to boarding school when I was naughty at home.
“I started looking into it and realised boarding school was not so bad. We applied at Boys High, I got into boarding school there and continued playing basketball at grade eight, and in grade nine I made it to the U15 provincial team (in 2024), and I was captain of the team. That’s when I knew I had a future in the sport.”
He has already begun the process of fulfilling his ambition of pursuing basketball and education abroad.
“We are currently working with BRUSA; they are helping us to get in contact with colleges in the US. We are also looking at gap year programs to help me develop academically and athletically. Even if I can enter college without a gap year programme, that would be great,” said Swanepoel.
While Swanepoel harbours big dreams, he knows a lot of work lies ahead to reach them. This being his final year of school, how does he manage a hectic academic schedule that includes exams and a playing schedule?
“It’s about having a balance of everything. It’s something I am used to. I have always been busy with sports and school,” said Swanepoel. Having started soccer before playing basketball, I have always been busy athletically, while having academic pressure.”
He credits being a boarder at Boys’ High for giving him the discipline he needs to stay on track academically.
“I think staying at hostel also helps, where there is an allocated time to study. So I don’t have the option of shying away from studying. So it’s about having a good balance of everything… Going to your practices, getting that out of the way and getting back to hostel, focusing on academics and doing what needs to be done. Obviously, academics have a big impact on college applications and marks do matter,” said Swanepoel.
He reflected on the Africa Grassroots Hoops Youth Classic Basketball Tournament in Cape Town, where his feats led the Durban-based DUEP club to the championship and he landed the MVP crown.
“It was an honour to be named MVP with all the talent and skill at the tournament. There were a lot of really good players at the tournament. The team… We performed really well. It was our first tournament together, and we went undefeated in the tournament was good for us,” said Swanepoel. “It showed all the talent and skill we had. We came together as one even though we did not have a lot of chemistry. Our skills and talent really helped us.”
His abilities have not gone unnoticed within the DUEP structures, as he has since graduated to the senior team, and he will be part of the KwaZulu-Natal team’s challenge at the 2026 National Club Championships. The championships, scheduled for late August, will serve as qualifiers for the Road to BAL.
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