Jillian Archer’s college career spanned coast to coast.
After spending her freshman season at nearby USC (2018-19), she transferred to Georgetown and suited up for the Hoyas for two seasons (2020-22) before finishing up with two season at St. John’s (2022-24).
So she’s no stranger to traveling, which has benefitted her in a pro career that has most recently taken her to Broni, Italy, where the 6-foot-3 25-year-old is the starting power forward for Logiman Broni, which competes in the Italian Serie
A1. She’s averaging almost 11 points and eight rebounds per game.
And this California girl is also playing for the Cedars, as the Lebanon national team is called. Most recently, she represented Lebanon at the FIBA Women’s Asia Cup last summer, averaging 14.5 points and nine rebounds over four games.
Archer recently spoke to Swish Appeal about her basketball life and life beyond the sport, from growing up in a big family, her solution for pigeon toes and Italian food. Below are some highlights from the interview:
On moving from her home state of California to Georgetown, on he other side of the country:
When I was 18 years old I was like, “Yeah, I can’t wait to get away from my family and be by myself.” It quickly hit me that [I missed] the support system that I had back home, although it did extend to the East Coast because I had FaceTime and phone calls. I definitely was missing home-cooked meals and having my family at games. Those were the two worst things when I first got there, it definitely took me a while to adjust to both of those, but once I was able to find the positives within those negatives, it helped me a lot.
On how she became a Lebanese citizen:
When I finished my season in Greece, I ended up signing with a team there, Homenetmen Beruit, amazing club, and during my showing there I was contacted by the national team and they expressed interest in me joining them. I had to go through the process of gaining my Lebanon citizenship and from there I was given a Lebanon ID and my passport, and I was a Lebanon citizen from there. The process didn’t take long, within a couple of months I was good to go.
A special thank you to Thomas Prodromou of Flash Agency for arranging the interview.
