Gina Conti is making her hoop dreams come true.
“Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to play professionally,” she says.
The Grove City native begins playing professional basketball in Europe in August after completing her five-year collegiate career – four years at Wake Forest University and a season with UCLA.
Conti is creative, driven and a certified leader. At Wake Forest, she earned a bachelor’s in communications and minored in entrepreneurship. She earned her master’s in education focusing on teaching, coaching and leadership at UCLA while using her final year of eligibility.
“So not to be a teacher. It’s more just like leadership and leadership styles,” Conti says. “It let me learn about the best, most successful coaches and how they ran their programs.”
Conti isn’t yet sure about pursuing a coaching career, however. She wants to keep her options open, as she has many passions and she’s unwilling to rule any of them out before she retires from the court.
Greyhound connections
Conti was young when she began playing basketball. She often played with her dad, Tony, on their backyard court.
In her earliest years in the sport, she remembers being coached by Jane Taylor, the wife of Joel Taylor, who currently coaches Grove City High School girls basketball.
The 5-foot-11 point guard attended Grove City High School where she was a three-sport athlete, playing four years of volleyball and spending two years on the track team in addition to basketball.
Athleticism runs in the family, as her dad and two older sisters were college athletes too. Both sisters played collegiate volleyball; Ellen at Division I Tennessee Tech University and Anna at Division II Kutztown University of Pennsylvania.
“Then me being the baby, I kind of got to reap the benefits of having them pave the way and create those connections and experiences to then allow me to thrive,” she says.
Growing up and playing sports in Grove City provided her with a supportive environment, Conti says.
“I knew I loved basketball and that I wanted to play in college,” Conti says. “So since that was my dream, I was able to, through Grove City connections, find different people that can help.”
Conti scored over 1,000 points during her career with the Greyhounds. As a junior, she averaged 17.9 points and 9.1 rebounds and was named OCC-Ohio Player of the Year and first-team all-state and all-district. She earned first team all-state and all-league honors as a senior, averaging 15.3 points.
She played Amateur Athletic Union basketball for more than five years with the Capital City Comets.
Around the world
Once she rose to the next level at Wake Forest, she says she still heard from Grove City connections as people reached out over email or through handwritten notes to tell her they were rooting for her and watching her play.
At Wake Forest, she played in every game of her four-season career with the Demon Deacons, starting in all of them during her sophomore, junior and senior seasons. She finished her time at Wake Forest ranked third in program history with 485 career assists.
After committing to transfer to UCLA to pursue a more competitive program, she injured her foot in practice. Conti sat out a year and then competed during the 2022-23 season, which included a Sweet Sixteen appearance for the Bruins.
Conti started in 35 consecutive games and averaged 6.6 points, 3.4 rebounds and 3.3 assists during the season.
“I get very competitive. But I also feel like being a point guard you need to have a pulse of where the team’s at. Say it’s a really competitive game. It's really physical,” Conti says. “People can react in different ways, but I feel like my role that I took on was to bring everyone back to neutral.”
She learned skills from the mental training coach at UCLA, learning how to bring everyone back to their best headspace to perform for the next play.
During this summer, Conti plans to procure her Italian citizenship, which will support her career in Europe. Italian league teams are allowed two Americans and two Europeans, while the rest of the players must be Italian nationals. Being a dual citizen makes her more of an asset, allowing teams to technically have three Americans on their roster.
She expects to sign with a team and playing somewhere in Europe by the middle of August.
Her agency is based in Milan and Conti has family in Italy who she will stay with during her time there.
Family is a major part of her life. The whole family joins a FaceTime call once a week. She returned to Ohio in June to celebrate her mother’s retirement from teaching at Grove City High School.
She’s now an aunt, as both of her sisters have young children. She recently gifted her nephew his first pair of Jordans, which she hopes he’ll one day hang on his rear-view mirror.
Being across the Atlantic Ocean from her family will be the toughest part of being in Europe, she says.
On and off the court
As part of her fieldwork for her master’s degree, Conti began mentoring and training a 13-year-old girl, with whom she continues to work.
“I like mentoring, like giving back to people who love basketball that want to just talk about their life,” she says. “Seeing her grow as a basketball player is cool, especially at that age because you’re starting to learn and really get into like, ‘OK, you’re about to be in high school in two years.’”
With that experience, Conti says she could see herself later in life becoming a coach, but not quite yet.
“I have so many random passions that I want to exploit all those (first),” she says.
Conti enjoys traveling, fashion design and making art. Entrepreneurship is an avenue Conti says she could see herself pursuing in the future.
But before then, Conti is going to show off what she can do on the court. She entered the WNBA draft in March but wasn’t chosen for one of the mere 37 spots available each year. Even though she knew she would have options in Europe, it was important to put to her name in the ring and give herself the opportunity. She says she’ll pursue a trial option after a season in Europe.
“We’ll see what happens, but if I continue to play and work hard, I’m hoping that that’s just what’s next,” she says.
Claire Miller is an editor at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at cmiller@cityscenemediagroup.com.
