Georgia
Georgia Amoore: the girl from Ballarat taking US college basketball by storm | Peter Mitchell
Growing up in Ballarat, Georgia Amoore enjoyed terrorising boys on the football field. She was so quick and elusive with a Sherrin in her hands, the boys often only had one option to slow her down.
“They’d grab my ponytail,” Amoore says, laughing.
The helplessness those boys felt as Amoore left them in her dust is now being replicated in college basketball arenas across the US. If you’re not acquainted with the 22-year-old point guard’s exploits for Virginia Tech, you soon will be; Amoore is Australia’s next basketball star.
Later this month Amoore will lead the Hokies into March Madness. The 68-team NCAA knockout tournament is the grand finale of the college basketball season. Last year Virgina Tech, fuelled by a record 23 three-pointers in five games by Amoore, made it to the semi-finals before being knocked out by eventual champions LSU. It was the first time they had made the final four and it was when Amoore’s legend in the US was minted.
“Going into the tournament this year, we’ll carry the lessons that we learned from last year, but we also know it is not going to be easy,” she says.
Women’s NCAA basketball is in a golden era, often drawing higher TV ratings in the US than men’s games with Iowa’s Caitlin Clark smashing all-time men’s and women’s scoring records. Amoore stands alongside Clark, LSU’s Angel Reese, USC’s JuJu Watkins, Connecticut’s Paige Bueckers and South Carolina’s Te-Hina Paopao as A-listers in this year’s tournament. Amoore was also named alongside Clark and Paopao as finalists for the Nancy Lieberman award for top college point guard.
Contributing to Amoore’s cult status is her height. In a league of giants, the Australian stands just 168cm tall, but offsets any size disadvantage with a deadly step-back three-pointer. She is also an inspirational floor general and happy to get physical.
“I think Aussie basketball in general is harder headed and rougher than US basketball,” she says. “We’re not afraid to put our bodies on the line and we’re playing for our teammates which helps us take hits and then get up again.”
Amoore was introduced to basketball at five years old – watching her cousin Keeley Frawley play at Ballarat’s Minerdome. When Frawley’s team ran into foul trouble and had to sit players, they asked if Amoore could make up the numbers. On came a tiny Amoore in her thongs (flip-flops), and the rest is history.
“I loved it and I’ve been playing ever since,” she says.
The key to Virgina Tech’s success this year’s NCAA Tournament likely rests with the fitness of the team’s other star, All-American centre Elizabeth Kitley, who went down with a knee injury last week. Together, Amoore and Kitley are a dynamic duo with the Australian bombing from outside and the American dominating the paint. They’re also best friends, with their bond forged when the pandemic hit in 2020. With their basketball season shut down, the Virginia Tech campus closed and Amoore unable to fly back to Australia, Kitley’s family invited her to stay at their home in North Carolina.
Kitley said she thought Amoore was “crazy” when she first walked into the locker room.
“She was one of the first Australians I knew, and she was dancing all the time, wild, making jokes and abrupt in a good way,” Kitley told reporters.
American fans have also fallen in love with her Australian charm.
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“I just had to get my head out of my butt and be more aggressive,” Amoore told a US sideline reporter on live TV when describing her slow start in a win over the University of Miami last week.
Amoore is tipped to be a top 10 pick in April’s WNBA draft – one of the strongest drafts in the league’s history – if she elects not to return to Virginia Tech next season. She is also hoping to live a childhood dream to play for the Opals. Despite her high profile in the US and potent outside shot, Amoore has not been part of Sandy Brondello’s Australian team preparations ahead of the Paris Olympics.
“It’s definitely something that I really desire but the Opals have a great core group of girls and the ones that will be going to the Olympics have spent way more time with each other,” she says. “I respect those girls and I respect the coaching staff and if the opportunity arises, I will happily take it, but I’m also in a situation where I am in America and I can’t really go if they have a training camp on the other side of the world. I’ll just keep working hard and hopefully one day it happens.”
The Opals are not the only team in Amoore’s sights though – she doesn’t rule out one day playing for her beloved Geelong Cats in the AFLW. On a recent trip back to Australia, she went to a training session with the Cats’ men’s team, who presented her with a jersey – now one of her prized possessions. She immediately wore it to the park to kick the footy around.
“I love basketball and right now that’s my focal point, but playing in the AFLW is definitely something that I’d like to do,” she said. “Every recess and lunchtime in primary school I was out there playing footy with the boys and when I was 14, I joined my best mate’s boys team. I played until I was 15 or 16 when they said that I couldn’t play any more. I was in the midfield or front pocket, and loved grabbing the ball, sprinting, and bombing it. I never really had much direction, but I could get it on my foot pretty quick.”
That’s no surprise. Amoore’s release shooting a basketball is lightning quick. Could she use her kicking skills for Virginia Tech’s football team if they ever needed a punter on short notice? A few years back, Sydney’s Oscar Bradburn punted for the Hokies and almost 300 other Australians have punted for US colleges in recent years, so why not Amoore?
“I would love to!” Amoore says quickly.
So, if Virginia Tech suddenly needs a punter, they should call on Amoore. She could probably do it in thongs.
Georgia
Mom says viral video shows her being booted from Georgia restaurant for breastfeeding her baby
Aris Kopiec says she felt “belittled” after capturing video of a man yelling at her holding her sleeping baby inside Toccoa Riverside Restaurant. (Credit: @ariskopes/Instagram)
A Florida mother says a man she believed to be the owner of a popular riverside restaurant in Georgia yelled at her and ordered her to leave after she breastfed her infant — an encounter she says she recorded on her cellphone that shows a man shouting, “Get on out of here!”
The incident happened at Toccoa Riverside Restaurant in Blue Ridge, according to Aris Kopiec, and has since spread widely online, reigniting scrutiny of the business’ treatment of young families.
Kopiec told FOX Business she was dining with her husband, three young daughters — ages 4, 2 and 4 months — and family friends when her baby began to cry.
She said she latched her infant, covered up immediately, and ensured she was fully concealed from the view of anyone except her own table.
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The Kopiec family dined at the Toccoa Riverside Restaurant together with friends before the viral video incident happened. (Courtesy of Shyla Shoots / Fox News)
“The only people who could see me were at my table,” she said. “I covered myself immediately.”
Kopiec said she pulled her shirt back down and was preparing to take her older children outside when she bumped into either a chair or another guest in the crowded enclosed porch area. That, she says, is when the restaurant’s owner stepped toward her.
“He looked at me and said, ‘You can’t do that here,’” Kopiec recalled. “I wasn’t even breastfeeding at that point. I was holding my baby in one arm and helping my kids with the other. He wouldn’t let me get any words out. He kept saying, ‘I have to protect my restaurant. You need to go to a corner.’”
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A mother says she recorded a Georgia restaurant’s owner shouting at her after she breastfed her child. (@ariskopes via Instagram / Fox News)
Kopiec said she and her friend took the older children outside to wait while their spouses paid inside. Kopiec said staff apologized to the men in the group, but not to her.
She said when she returned to gather her belongings, the confrontation escalated. She said she calmly informed the man she claims is the owner that Georgia law explicitly protects breastfeeding in public places.
“I just told him, if he wanted to protect his restaurant, he should follow the law,” she said. “That’s when he lost his mind.”
Kopiec said the man refused to give his name. After her friend mentioned having his photograph, Kopiec began recording.
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Kopiec told FOX Business that staff at the restaurant apologized to her husband and her friend’s husband, but not her. (Courtesy of Shyla Shoots / Fox News)
In the video she shared with FOX Business, a man standing behind the counter shouts, “Get on out of here!” as Kopiec holds her infant in her arms.
“It was so aggressive,” she said. “I knew I had to get my kids out of there.”
Kopiec left the restaurant shaken.
“Honestly, I felt like I was in the wrong,” she said. “My instinct was to apologize. But then I reminded myself — women have a legal right to breastfeed. I did nothing wrong.”
Public records and local business listings confirm 67-year-old Tim Richter as the owner of Toccoa Riverside Restaurant. In September, a spotlight from the Fannin County Chamber of Commerce via Facebook also identified Richter as the longtime owner and praised the restaurant’s hospitality, a characterization many online commenters have contrasted sharply with the tone in the new viral video.
In a phone call with FOX Business, a man who identified himself as the restaurant’s owner declined to confirm whether he is the individual shown in the video. He defended the business, saying, “I’ve had the restaurant for thirty-three years. We’ve been breastfeeding for thirty-three years,” and claimed the incident had been “staged for clicks.”
Toccoa Riverside Restaurant did not provide any further comment.
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Aris Kopiec said she never felt so “belittled” as when the man she believes to be the owner of Toccoa Riverside Restaurant yelled at her for feeding her baby. (Courtesy of Shyla Shoots / Fox News)
Georgia law states that a mother may breastfeed “in any location where the mother and baby are otherwise authorized to be,” protecting nursing mothers from being removed or restricted for feeding their children.
Etiquette expert and author Alison Cheperdak told FOX Business the filmed confrontation raises serious concerns. Cheperdak’s etiquette book for everyday situations, “Was it Something I Said?” is set to publish early next spring.
“Breastfeeding is natural and legally protected,” Cheperdak said. “Hospitality is about care, not confrontation, and raising one’s voice at a guest is never acceptable.”
She added that a mother owes no apology for feeding her child.
“A calm explanation is appropriate, but the responsibility is on the restaurant to treat her with respect,” she said. “Even if a restaurant wants a quieter atmosphere, policies should never undermine basic respect for families.”
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A Georgia restaurant implemented a surcharge for “adults unable to parent,” on their menu. (WAGAweb)
Local Atlanta outlets, as well as Food and Wine, reported in 2023 that Toccoa Riverside raised eyebrows for posting an “adult surcharge” for parents deemed “unable to parent,” sparking backlash from families who said they had been reprimanded for their children’s behavior.
A FOX 5 Atlanta report on the surcharge controversy said parents claimed the owner had scolded their children and allegedly made a 3-year-old cry.
Kopiec said she hopes the attention leads to positive change. “Every nursing mom deserves to feel safe feeding her baby,” she said. “We have a legal right to breastfeed, period.”
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As for the restaurant, she said she has chosen not to hold onto anger. “I’ve chosen to forgive,” she said. “But I would really like to see them welcome breastfeeding moms.”
The video continues to circulate widely online, where commenters are debating breastfeeding protections and the treatment of young mothers and infants in public spaces.
No. 6 Ole Miss (11-1, 7-1 SEC) will host the Tulane Green Wave at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium next Saturday in what will be the Rebels’ College Football Playoff debut.
After a historic 2025 campaign for the program in Oxford, Pete Golding and Co. will have home-field advantage in the first-round of the College Football Playoff against a fiery Tulane squad.
“I think this is something that this program is going to be the expectation moving forward. That’s something that I’m used to,” head coach Pete Golding said.
“That’s something when you invest a lot into programs and you’re aligned from the top down, from the chancellor to the athletic director to the head football coach to a really good growth collective led by Walker Jones and your elite, really good players, this should be the norm.”
With all eyes on the first-round showdown, the winner of the Dec. 20 matchup will hit the road to New Orleans (La.) to take on the Georgia Bulldogs in the Sugar Bowl at the Caesars SuperDome the following weekend.
Which way does ESPN see the first-round matchup going? Who will take on the Georgia Bulldogs on Dec. 27?
The Game Information: College Football Playoff
Matchup: Ole Miss Rebels vs. Tulane Green Wave
Kickoff Time: 2:30 p.m. CT
Venue: Vaught-Hemingway Stadium
TV Channel: TNT
Radio: Ole Miss Sports Radio Network
Ole Miss Rebels Record: 11-1 (7-1 SEC)
Tulane Green Wave Record: 11-2 (7-1 AAC)
Odds, Spread and Total: College Football PlayoffEmpty heading
Odds via FanDuel Sportsbook
Spread
- Ole Miss: -17.5 (-105)
- Tulane Green Wave: +17.5 (-115)
Moneyline
- Ole Miss: -900
- Tulane Green Wave: +590
Total
- Over 56.5 (-114)
- Under 56.5 (-106)
Ole Miss is currently listed as 17.5-point favorites in the program’s College Football Playoff debut against the Tulane Green Wave.
The over/under for the matchup sits at 56.5 with the Ole Miss offense looking to wreak havoc against the Green Wave.
According to the ESPN Football Power Index, the Ole Miss Rebels have a 84 percent chance to take down the Tulane Green Wave and advance to the quarterfinal round against the Georgia Bulldogs.
On the other side, Jon Sumrall and the Green Wave have a 16 percent chance of pulling off the upset with the program eyeing an opportunity to move on to the next round in the Sugar Bowl at the Caesars SuperDome in New Orleans (La.)
ESPN currently believes that the Ole Miss Rebels and Georgia Bulldogs will square off in the Sugar Bowl at the Caesars SuperDome.
First-Round Games:
No. 12 James Madison at No. 5 Oregon | 7:30 p.m. ET Saturday, Dec. 20
No. 11 Tulane at No. 6 Ole Miss | 3:30 p.m. ET, Saturday, Dec. 20 on TNT, truTV, HBO Max
No. 10 Miami at No. 7 Texas A&M | Noon ET, Saturday, Dec. 20
No. 9 Alabama at No. 8 Oklahoma | 8 p.m. ET, Friday, Dec. 19
Quarterfinals:
No. 1 Indiana vs. winner of No. 8 Oklahoma/No. 9 Alabama | 4 p.m. ET, Thursday, Jan. 1
No. 2 Ohio State vs. winner of No. 7 Texas A&M vs. No. 10 Miami | 7:30 p.m. ET, Wednesday, Dec. 31
No. 3 Georgia vs. winner of No. 6 Ole Miss/No. 11 Tulane | 8 p.m. ET, Thursday, Jan. 1
No. 4 Texas Tech vs. winner of No. 5 Oregon/No. 12 James Madison | Noon ET, Thursday, Jan. 1
More Ole Miss News:
Lane Kiffin Reacts to New Offensive Coordinator Being Hired By Ole Miss Football
Ole Miss Football QB Trinidad Chambliss Wins Major Award Amid Breakout Season
ESPN Predicts Outcome of Ole Miss Football vs. Tulane Green Wave in CFP Showdown
Join the Community:
Follow Zack Nagy on Twitter: @znagy20 and Ole Miss Rebels On SI: @OleMissOnSI for all coverage surrounding the Ole Miss program.
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Georgia center Somto Cyril goes up for a dunk during the first half against Cincinnati in their NCAA basketball game in the Holiday Hoopsgiving at State Farm Arena, Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, in Atlanta. Georgia won 84-65. (Jason Getz/AJC)
By Olivia Sayer
6 hours ago
When Georgia basketball took the court Saturday afternoon at State Farm Arena, it resembled a team who had not faced another opponent in 11 days.
The Bulldogs came out lackadaisical with more turnovers than successful shots in the game’s first two minutes and faced an 11-point deficit before halftime.
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