A few months ago, a couple of Shavonte Zellous’ Croatian teammates on her Turkish club approached her with an interesting proposition: would she be interested in playing for their national team? For Zellous, becoming a naturalized Croatian citizen represented an opportunity to compete in the olympics, as well as other international tournaments. It was an chance she could not pass up.

Because of her new commitment to Croatia, Zellous will be absent from the Fever from May 25 to June 28, while she competes in the FIBA European Championships. But despite her impending European travel plans, the reliable scoring guard is focused on the Fever at present, where she is trying to adjust to playing under a new head coach in Stephanie White.

“It was kind of weird the first day,” said Zellous of seeing coach White on the first day of training camp. But of all players on the Fever, it might be “Z” who benefits the most from White’s turn at the helm. Because of White’s uptempo philosophy, Zellous expects to see scoring ramped up for the Fever.

“It’s going to excite not only me, but Bri (Briann January), Marissa (Coleman), our new addition Shenise (Johnson),” said Zellous of the uptempo offense. “We like to get up and down the court. I think it fits us pretty well.”

Zellous also mentioned the passing of Lauren Hill, the inspirational college basketball player who recently succumbed to a long battle with brain cancer.

“She touched a lot of lives and she’ll be missed, but I know she left something here still,” Zellous said.