Southerns current 18's

Way back...

This Norwood team could have competed:

Pero V, Darren Martin, Ben Lomman, Mark Scholes, Chris Mellow, Darren Martin, mitchell, incognito, sam simmons with Shaun Ryan coaching won state champs and came 4th at the classics.

Got turfed in classics semis by a west adelaide team who had 2 of the best players state (dave bell - West and tyson ward - Forestville) as ringins who only played for west in that classics.

West Adelaide ended up winning the whole thing but had they not cheated anything could have happened. The U18 comp was strong that year.

so is that team better than Arnold, Krause, Gower, Thopmson

Its debatable.

Krause left for his 2nd yr of u18s.

Throw Jason Januszki into that Norwood team too I mentioend before and remove one of the darren martins.

Would have to say the Woodville Team was the best! We actually won the Melbourne Classics in 1999. The bench was deep everybody knew their role within the team, it was sick!

incognito,

How was the West team allowed to win The Classics if what they did was deemed cheating?

And didn't they beat Norwood the following year in the State Champs when Norwood had the same team and West was minus their "ring-ins"?

My understanding is that it was a bitter rivalry between the two teams for a few years. Very bitter.

(PS. My vote goes to Blakemore's U18s - not only kicked ass, but also developed a few NBL players too. That's a reflection of the strength of that team)

Just curious . . . ?????

I must declare some self interest and put in a vote in for the 1995 Sturt Under 18's. We got pumped by Norwood in the semis of State Champs, and then won the Classics, pumping Norwood (Pero, Lomman, Mellow etc)in the quarters, a tough Nunawading (easily) in the semis and a star-studded Dandenong (Damien Ryan, Aaron Grabau plus a stack of Vic State players) in the final in OT. Leigh Carlson hit a 30 foot triple in front of their bench in the last minute of OT to seal it! We were arguably the best full court D and shooting group SA has ever seen. This group could compete with any group in the last 20 years, even though we had very little size.

Also don't forget the Sturt Under 18's a few years before who won the Classics (with Maher at the AIS!).

Curious:

Any impartial observer would know what I mean. If other teams could do that now, the classics may as well just become the Nationals. The rules got changed after that year so as to prevent that situation from occuring again.

I do agree that on paper the West (Blakemore) team is probably the best but obviously there may be others.

The team scott butler speaks about would be the most exciting in my opinion. Those kind of teams (small, fast, full court, motion type, shooting) make junior basketball exiting that you dont really see at senior level.

Wonder how the North team that is u20s now would stack up. Quite well I would think.

They came 2nd at Classics in 2002.

Have 2 AIS kids (Kies, Kersten), and plenty of state players (Burdon X 2, Mapunda Tyson Zorich). Good group who played together for a long time.

Tigers have had some talented groups. 84s = Florence (AIS & State Captain), Gerlach (ripping up ABL), McEntee (if only he'd kept playing..) etc.

85s = Dubinecki (State Captain, 3 X State rep), Brown (State in 16s, unlucky to be 2 X reserve in 18s), Braithwaite (State in 16s), Chambers (EASILY talented enough to be a state player IMHO) Mencel (State in 16s), Clarke (State in 16s) + Solid Role players in King & Puhle.

86s = Wood (AIS), Villa (State rep X 2 + 1 reserve), Boal (Country Rep X 3 + U20 rep), Alexopoulos (State Rep X 3) Bonney (Reserve in 16s) Pearce (State in 16s, if he dedicated himself, maybe would have been in 18s.... playing SANFL for Sturt nowdays).

Unfortunately the best result for this bunch was 4th at Classics for the 85/86 group after a HUGE win over Bulleen.

The 84/85 group lost to Sturt in the State Champ Semis, romped the regular Winter season (undefeated) then choked twice against North in finals (Semi & GF).

Very, very talented boys though.

The North 85s team wouldn't match those other teams because of their lack of anything really height-wise, though if they did have a player like Dubeiniecki (6'8? from the NCT 85s), they would have been pretty much unstoppable.

Hoop, I thought I knew the names of everyone in my league...Chambers, he's their old point guard right? If so, he was a good player in 16s, but had faded a bit and was overtaken by others in his team when he did play in 18s (from memory he quit halfway through?).

We had the wood on that 85 team in 18s, beat them 3 times in a row but never played them in the finals at the end becase we couldn't beat bloody Woodville!