Fifth-year Arizona State guard Last-Tear Poa has quite the resume, to put it mildly.
Poa takes great pride in her family, with her unique name emphasizing its importance. Her name, Last-Tear, comes from her great-grandmother.
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“She had a dream that someone in my mom’s generation was pregnant, but she didn’t know who it was,” Poa said. “A couple months down the line my mom ended up vocalizing that she was pregnant right before my great-grandmother died.”
While Poa’s great-grandmother was in the hospital, one last tear ran down her cheek before she passed away. Poa, the unborn child, is named in honor of her great-grandmother.
“When I was born, I ended up having a beauty spot under my left eye of the last tear,” Poa said recently, as the Sun Devils women’s basketball team prepared for their postseason push.
ASU began that task on Wednesday, March 4, in the first round of the Big 12 Conference tournament when the No. 10-seeded Sun Devils beat the 15-seed and in-state rival Arizona in Kansas City, 54-51. Poa’s pull-up jumper with 1:55 left in the game was the deciding factor as both teams missed a combined five shots down the stretch
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ASU’s conference tourney run continues at 4:30 p.m., March 5, against No. 7 seed Iowa State. It will be streamed on ESPN+.
A bubble team for the NCAA Tournament, the longer ASU can stay alive in the conference tournament, the better its chances of qualifying for March Madness.
Poa is eager to return to the victory dias, after taking an unconventional journey to the collegiate ranks in the United States.
Originally from Melbourne, Australia, college basketball in the U.S. wasn’t even a thought for Poa until a trainer she worked with, from the U.S., suggested it. The Women’s National Basketball League, Australia’s professional home for the game, was the traditional path for aspiring ballers.
ASU Sun Devils guard Last-Tear Poa (13) drives into the lane as Coppin State Bald Eagles guard Skylar Barnes (5) defends at Desert Financial Arena on Nov. 3, 2025.
“Back home, they really advertise the WNBL early, so a lot of us end up going pro,” said Poa, who instead chose to start at the junior college level in the U.S. before transferring to basketball powerhouse LSU.
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She played three seasons at LSU, where she was a part of the national championship-winning team in 2023 under coach Kim Mulkey. Renowned for her tenacity on the defensive end and “doing the dirty work,” as Poa herself says, she drew two huge charge fouls on Iowa’s Caitlin Clark in that national championship game.
When Poa jumped in the transfer portal before the start of this season, it was all about the coach, wherever she decided to go. Mulkey’s fierce intensity is a sharp contrast to first-year ASU coach Molly Miller’s positive energy.
“I was looking for a coach that believed in me and Molly was just consistent,” Poa said. “She was just determined to have me here, and I just felt loved.”
Basketball runs deep in the Poa family. Poa credits her grandfather, Richard Poa, with laying her foundation and pushing her to pick up the sport.
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Poa’s grandparents, Debbie and Richard, have had the opportunity to travel to the U.S. and watch her play college basketball on multiple occasions and are filled with pride over their granddaughter’s achievements.
“Basketball has always been in our family,” said Debbie Poa, after she attended a recent ASU practice at Desert Financial Arena. “Myself, her grandfather and her mother all played basketball. She sort of had no choice. It’s all in the family. The Poa family all plays basketball.”
However, being a “basketball family” in Australia may be less common than one thinks.
ASU Sun Devils guard Last-Tear Poa (13) brings the ball up court against the Kansas State Wildcats at Desert Financial Arena in Tempe on Feb. 1, 2026.
The sport known as women’s basketball today, wasn’t always “women’s basketball” in Australia. Up until the 1970s, “women’s basketball” in Australia was the game known today as netball.
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Netball is played by two teams of seven players who attempt to throw a ball through a 10-foot hoop with no backboard. The catch? No dribbling. Only about one step is allowed once a player catches the ball, and players are restricted to areas on the court depending on their position.
Renowned Australian sports journalist Debbie Spillane played netball growing up in Sydney, and after she was hired by the Australian Broadcasting Company, she was sent to cover the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. It was the first time the Opals, Australia’s National Women’s Basketball Team, qualified for the Games. They have only missed one Olympic Games since. The Opals have been mainstays in the medal rounds, winning bronze in 1996, 2012 and 2024, and silver in 2000, 2004 and 2008.
Even with Olympic success, Spillane said that women’s basketball in Australia hasn’t seen the boom you’d necessarily expect across all parts of the country.
Spillane maintains that part of the battle to continue the growth of women’s basketball in Australia is accessibility at the grassroots level.
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“More women still participate in netball as the community infrastructure supports it better,” Spillane said. “Netball courts are everywhere in girls’ schools and local communities. I have two daughters, both who wanted to play basketball, but they never attended a school that had a basketball court. Every school they attended had a netball court.”
Although basketball still faces challenges competing for viewership in Australia against traditional sports such the Australian Football League or the National Rugby League, it is miles (or kilometers) ahead in popularity from where it was when the NBL and WNBL — Australia’s professional basketball leagues — began decades ago.
“I can remember we would talk excitedly in the office if one of us saw a basketball hoop go up in our neighborhood,” Spillane said. “It was literally an outlier to see such a thing. I can happily report it’s no rarity these days, and both men’s and women’s basketball league games are broadcast live on cable TV — and select games on broadcast TV. That would’ve seemed impossible pre-1990s.”
As Poa finishes her final collegiate season at ASU, averaging 4.7 points and 3.8 assists per game, she and her teammates are ushering in a new era of women’s basketball in Tempe.
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“As a point guard, I’m supposed to lead the team,” Poa said, speaking about the offensive end of the floor. “But defensively is really where I get my momentum from.”
Poa and the Sun Devils hope to ride that momentum through March, in a journey that could potentially end in the Valley when Phoenix hosts the Women’s Final Four.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona State’s Last-Tear Poa driven by basketball, Aussie family
