Be a Good Ancestor: Hillary Nets’ Vision for the Liffey Celtics

Nets Settles the Noise

Nets settles the noise on taking the Super League reins at Liffey Celtics, leaning on a philosophy that could just as easily be stitched on a tapestry: “Be a good ancestor.” It's also one that resonates for leadership at the highest levels of sport on the other side of the planet.

Liffey Celtics compete in the top tier of women’s basketball in Ireland.

The squad was among the frontrunners last season in Ireland's top flight women's league, requiring a playoff to separate them and Killester, the eventual league winners, in March. Despite bringing home the Paudie O’Connor National Cup as recognition of national success, the organization made a decisive shift in Nets direction for the 2025/26 campaign.

Eighteen sessions into preseason, most coaches are still ironing out lineups and trying to keep fitness drills from feeling like boot camp. Hillary Nets (Netsiyanwa) is doing that too-but with his ideals already firmly established.

A Veteran Coach with a Formula

A veteran of seventeen years in the coaching game, Nets’ mantra isn’t just motivational fluff. It’s a practical compass for balancing a squad that mixes hardened internationals with wide-eyed emerging talents. “Our long-standing players have been (great ancestors) to the younger talent on the team. Whether that’s been through encouragement, an arm around the shoulder or most importantly setting a good example through their habits and professionalism.”

Nets insists he “welcomes mistakes” as part of the job description. “This is where we can grow and prepare for the bigger moments.” But balancing a new coach, critical analysis, and an environment where players can earnestly compete and be critiqued is as challenging as it sounds. “At the end of the day we play a sport that requires one team to score more than the other and there are numbers that contribute to that outcome which my players are very aware off.”

Modern Coaching Challenges

One of the challenges for modern coaches is how to introduce analytics without suffocating players under the weight of percentages and charts and hours of film sessions. Nets has no intention of turning Liffey into a team of number hunters; for him, the figures are there to support, not to intimidate. “It’s not just as simple as putting the ball in the basket, we need to protect the ball, we need to get rebounds and stops. All of that put together gets us to our goal and those numbers are embedded in our team culture.”

Nets believes the buy-in comes naturally when the numbers are not an abstract but a mirror of the hard work put in on the court.

Drawing on nearly two decades in the sport, Nets has learned that coaching is as much about feel as it is about facts. He speaks openly about the balancing act between instinct and analytics, a dance that modern coaches cannot afford to ignore. “Instinct will give you the in game adjustment, momentum shifts, body language, knowing when to keep going with a hot hand or pull someone before things go wrong." In game adjustments require the sharp eye and intuition that can only come from years on the sideline.

Leveraging the Data

But while instinct catches the mood of a game, Nets insists analytics reveal what the eye might miss or details that are quickly lost in the battle. “Analytics strips away bias and gives you the patterns you can’t always see,” he explains. “The analytics help inform the decisions we make as coaches. So being able to see our hot zones, for example, informs a number of things depending on your values as a coach.” For him, it’s not a case of one replacing the other, but of two tools working in tandem: gut instinct for the moment, data for the bigger picture and informing where there are gaps. “Numbers show you what tends to work and experience tells you when to break the trend.”

And building Culture

Above all, Nets insists that belonging is “essentially a non-negotiable” element of his coaching, the foundation on which everything else rests. Without a shared investment from everyone in the room, “any team will fail.” That investment, he says, is rooted in “habits and trust as a team.” In Nets’ vision, belonging isn’t a bonus: “We have a shared goal on the team but we also care for the well being and success of each person on our team." It’s the glue that turns a group of players into winners.

In a season where the Celtics walk a fine line between the hunger of underage talent and the hard-earned privilege of international veterans, Nets is shaping not just a roster, but a culture. His vision blends the old with the new, the humans with the computer vision enabled analytics, and insists on one thing above all: leaving the game better than you found it.

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