Abbey Ellis was curled up on the couch of her family home in Melbourne's outer north as the Opals won their way on to the podium at last year's Olympics.
Nine months on, when Australia faces New Zealand on Wednesday in its first game since the Paris Games, the pocket rocket point guard will be on debut for the green and gold.
"I was cheering for the Opals in that bronze medal game, watching with my family. Sami Whitcomb was absolutely amazing, so was Ezi (Magbegor) and Steph Talbot had that huge block," the 24-year-old told ESPN.
"It's crazy, what's happening now. I was in Indiana this time last year, I hadn't even graduated from college yet.
"It's been a whirlwind."
Meteoric seems too slow a term to describe Ellis' rise.
After finishing her college career with the Purdue Boilermakers, she returned to Melbourne and played with local NBl1 South outfit Diamond Valley before signing with Townsville Fire for the WNBL season.
Keen to secure her signature, four-time coach of the year Shannon Seebohm knew he'd landed a rising star. But Ellis' explosion took even him by surprise.
"I just wanted to make a WNBL team, that was my priority," Ellis says.
Not only did she make a team, she made an impact.
She earned a start in her first WNBL game and averaged 9.8 points, 3.4 rebounds and 3 assists on her way to winning the league's Betty Watson Breakout Player of the Year award.
Ellis was also a key play maker in the Fire reaching a third Grand Final in five years.
After the Fire fell to Bendigo in the best-of-three Grand Final series in March, Ellis turned focus to what she expected to be a full campaign with the Eagles back in her home state.
Riding a wave of confidence and momentum, Ellis has carried her form into the off-season and is averaging 22.29 points in her second NBL1 campaign.
In a Round 3 mid-week pre-Easter clash with the Melbourne Tigers, Ellis scored 17 points in the Eagles' 90-81 victory.
"I checked my phone after the game and had a text from Shannon saying 'Hey, good game against Melbourne. Can you give me a call ASAP, really got to talk to you about something'.
"Me, being me, was thinking 'Oh no, I'm off the WNBL team! He wants to get an import point guard.'"
Instead, it was the best kind of news from Seebohm, also an Opals assistant coach.
Ellis had been called into the Opals camp that was currently unfolding in Melbourne after Maddy Rocci went down with a knee injury.
She competed in the last day and a half of action, soaking up every moment and lesson.
Then it was back to Diamond Valley, until she once again checked her phone at a basketball stadium.
"I was doing a school holiday camp, hadn't checked my phone for about two hours and saw that [Opals coach] Sandy [Brondello] had sent a message on WhatsApp asking when a good time would be to call.
"I still had two hours of camp to go, it was on my mind non-stop so I went to the other coaches and said 'Hey guys, is it OK if I make a call?'
"I went to my car, settled down and she called me and it was super cool when she said I'd be debuting for the Opals on home soil. I was like 'Are you serious!?'
"Sandy said I'd made a nice surprise on the WNBL scene and that I suited the offence of spaced out, five out and as a point guard being able to come off pick and roll and create and create for others and not just score the ball.
"Being young and coachable, always wanting to learn and improve - she touched on that too."
That coachability was obvious to Australia's greatest ever point guard Michele Timms.
Timms coached Ellis as a junior at Bulleen and has been a big fan as she's moved through the pathways.
"Timmsy taught us that if you do everything 100%, you'll get the best outcome and that all the little stuff matters," Ellis says.
"She was a fast point guard so we did so many drills, trying to get up the floor in three or four dribbles and we were these little 10-year-olds just trying to dribble with our left hand and the ball's going out the court, coming off your foot and Timmsy loved that.
"She loved all that fumbling and making mistakes because it meant that you were pushing yourself."
Ellis has also taken inspiration from, and tried to model her game on, another pint-sized distributor in dual Olympian and former WNBL star Leilani Mitchell.
"I thought Leilani was the greatest. She was such a good point guard for Australia, in the WNBL and the WNBA as well.
"I looked up to the way she played, her height, her IQ and how talented she was. I watched her a lot especially leading up to going to college."
Now, Ellis follows in their footsteps.
Australia and the Tall Ferns will contest a three-game Trans-Tasman series starting in Adelaide on Wednesday night before moving to the Sunshine Coast (Friday, May 9) then across the ditch to Hamilton, NZ on Sunday, May 11.
Ellis and her Townsville team mates Courtney Woods and Alex Fowler make their Opals debuts as does Perth Lynx livewire Miela Sowah.
With the WNBA season about to tip off for Aussie players including Paris Olympic medallists Talbot, Magbegor, Whitcomb, Alanna Smith, Jade Melbourne, and Brondello, who leads reigning champion New York Liberty, Associate Head Coach Paul Goriss will take the reins in this series.
Australian Opals team: Sara Blicavs, Isobel Borlase, Abbey Ellis, Alex Fowler, Keely Froling, Nyadiew Puoch, Steph Reid, Maddy Rocci, Lauren Scherf, Alex Sharp, Miela Sowah, Courtney Woods