hmmmm, you seem quite strongly about this. I'd like to discuss it some more. ie what would be the ramifications of this promotion relegation long-term on clubs.

How would it effect the long-term standard of basketball?

Once clubs were relegated would it ever be possibly to regain their div 1 status (realistically?).

As for being a laughing stock, i think that is quite questionable... we did take two titles from the classics and a silver at the 18's nationals, can you support your claim of us being a laughing stock please.

Doctor,

Here is a list of finishes and projected finishes for 2005.

Under 20 Men 4th
Under 20 Women 4th
Under 18 Boys - Metro 7th, Country 10th
Under 18 Girls - Metro 2nd, Country 10th
Under 16 Boys - Metro 9-10, Country 11-12
Under 16 Girls - Metro 7-8, Country 9-10

Look at the above list and tell me that for a State which has historically been the next best behind Victoria (with NSW only challenging in the last decade) that these results are not embarassing!

i think it is unfair to place your entire argument on one tournament of one year. Where have we finished in these age groups over the last 3-5 years? How about the classic results, that's not good news?

I agree with Laughing Stock.
The age group that we did well in at the classics was U/18 girls and that is where we did well at Nationals with silver,

other than that

U/18 Metro Boys 7th
U/18 Country Boys 10th
U/18 Coutnry Girls 10th

U/16 Metro Boys 9 - 12th
U/16 Metro Girls 5 - 8th
U/16 Country Boys 9 - 12th
U/16 Country Girls 5 - 12th

Also At the Classics

U/12 Boys 1 team top 8 (Sturt)
U/12 Girls Gold and 5th (Sturt and Forestvile)
U/14 Boys 3rd and 4th (West and Sturt)
U/14 Girls 1 team top 8 (Sturt)
U/16 Boys 0 teams top 8
U/16 Girls 0 teams top 8
U/18 Girls Good results
U/18 Boys Forestville 5th, Southern 7th.

If you think that this is an acceptable performacne then you are very wrong. Not too long ago we had numerous medals at Nationals. And consistant top 4 performances at Classics.

We can see that other than the odd good performance we have limited chances of being the best in the country.

I guess the long term concequences of promotion/relegation are that if your club does not put much effort into developing players then they will consistantly not have a team in div 1. If you do then it may only be the odd team that misses out in certain years.

As for the ability to make it back into div 1. It is the same, if you do the work then you can requalify
in future years with each club being able to have a team start in the top 10.

But most clubs would rather spend all of their money on their senior teams by recruiting away from other clubs who do all of the develoment. Just like your club has servived on for the past 5 years.

you do have to remember that most other states are older than us.

2004

Under 20 Men - 2nd
Under 20 Women - 1st
Under 18 Men - Metro 4th, Country 8th
Under 18 Women - Metro 3rd, Country 6th
Under 16 Men - Metro 8th, Country 9th
Under 16 Women - Metro 3rd, Country 7th

It's only marginally better than 2005. Which means we are going steadily backwards from bad to worse.

Under the current competition structure the top half of clubs are so far ahead of the bottom half it isn't funny! For those that say pro/rel will only see the rich get richer, that is bs! The top half cannot be more dominant than what they are at the moment.

There are 5 clubs who between them had a handful of teams in the top 4 of all State divs at State Champs. One club dominated.

A few teams doing OK at Classics is very relevant. It proves that the Vics are going backwards at the same rate as us. Just ask any of the top Vic coaches and they all say their comp is the worst it has ever been and getting worse.

Why? Because they have 20 teams in Championship now, when it used to be 10. They are doing what we are doing and we are both going backwards!

Elite competitions in both SA and Vic are being run using participation style models and all this does is run down the elite comps. Wake up SA basketball, before it's too late!

fudgeman, in basketball terms SA is the second oldest behind Victoria. NSW played the game before us but not at our level. Strong Eastern European influences after the war set up the game for what it was in the 80s and 90s. For most of the history of basketball in Australia it has been Victoria vs SA. The people who built up basketball in SA would be disgusted at the state it is in at all levels today!

so is pro/rel to answer or a band-aid fix to a bigger problem? What other things need to change, or happen?

I still think we are far off laughing stock, but i can see our results (2004-2005) have not gone in the right direction.

It is the answer, the proposals we are seeing come out at Junior Committee at the moment are the band-aids. In fact they will make it even worse.

Fix the competition first. Run it as a true elite competition where it is tough to play in and tough to stay in. Anything else is secondary.

Again here are SA's possible finishes:

Under 20 Men 4th (of 7)
Under 20 Women 4th (of 7)
Under 18 Boys - Metro 7th, Country 10th
Under 18 Girls - Metro 2nd, Country 10th
Under 16 Boys - Metro 9-10, Country 11-12
Under 16 Girls - Metro 7-8, Country 9-10

Other states ARE laughing at us!

L. Stock,

Why not ask Neil Gliddon on Talking Hoops tonight how he views South Australia in the national scheme of things?

He presumably saw the 18s and just as presumably is currently watching the 16s, so he more than anyone else in this state should have an idea of how we are going nationally.

Hats off once more to the Talking Hoops boys for again getting a top-notch roster of guests.

The competition on a Friday needs to be closer.

BUT Pro / rel is a little too extreme in my opinion. There are risks inolved, in that it will exacerbate the problems it is trying to resolve.

In the past clubs were able to nominate more than one team in div 1 / 2. Why cant this be reintroduced ?

Why cant a roadmap be introduced to get to pro/rel? IE phase it in over a number of years (5 - 10 yrs). The first phase could be a nominations committee be setup to review nominations on a case by case basis, meeting certain criteria. Then perhaps try it with one or 2 age groups or put a tougher set of criteria on those clubswith already 2 teams in a higher division to get more there.

Pro / rel with no kind of checks or balances is just too extreme to do all at once.

Take it step by step. Observe the results and go to the next step.

OK. Introduce it at 12's in 2005/06. 14's in 2006/07. 16's in 2007/08 and 18's in 2008/09. Limit of 2 teams from any club in the top division. Review the comp for 2009/10.

would you limit it to the Div one/twos. Ie- teams can fall from 1-2 or rise from 2-1 but can't fall below 2. Or would you make it across the board so that all divisions (bar the last) have 10 teams.

Any if your going to go this far, why limit it at two. That's only half a fix. Lets stop holding back the clubs that focus on development!

With regular reviews and the ability to wind it back what would the downside be to #41260? If it does not work it can always be wound back with that kind of phased in, cautious approach.

On face value, I would hope that the club i am involved with would support this, as long as there was the means to roll it back if it was not working. IE we started losing juniors from basketball, there was not adequate level of representation at Div 1 / 2 level throughout the metro area, results at nationals did not improve.

Dunkenstein, one step at a time in my opinion.

But where exactly are we going wrong, Laughing Stock? Are we being outhustled, or outskilled, or both? How does a "close" competition benefit kids if they are not being taught the skills needed to compete succeed at a higher level - especially if all they want to do on a Friday night in a "close" competition is win, rather than get better?

And what do we want from our state basketball program: do we want team results at U16 level or would we rather produce one or more Newley/Hill/Ingles or Bishop/Scaglia/Mencel at the end of 18s each year?

I am not sure about the answers to any of these, but would hope that Neil Gliddon might be able to talk about these sorts of things tonight

Anonymous (#41276),

"I don't think that the top 5 sides from Div 2 on average would be better than the bottom 5 teams from Div 1."

You are correct, but the top 2 or 3 in Div 2 would generally be at 6-9 in Div 1. Having 0,1,2 or 3 of them in an 8 team grade would greatly improve the competition.

Let's take Under 14 Boys for example. Arguably these would be the split of the top 2 Divs:

The Top 3/4 are clear
5-7 in Div 1 would be very close with the top 3 in Div 2
8-10 In Div 1 would be close with 4 to 6 in D2.

Let's say the top 8 was made up of 6 in the current Div 1 and 2 of the current Div 2's, then 4 out of every 7 weeks the top 3 get a great game and the other 3 would be easier but still challenging. The rest would get a great game every week.

In the next 8, the comp would be so close that there would be great games virtually every week. Not only that but the best first year players would generally be in one of these 2 groups and this would have a flow-on effect to the next year, and in turn to the next year and so on.

I can only speak for the boys but the top teams in Under 18's, 16's, 14's and 12's would all be very competitive with (and could beat) up to 4th or higher in Div 1. Bringing them into the top 8 greatly improves the top division. Remember that these teams at Nunawading recently beat (in some cases easily) the 6th to 10th place teams in Div 1's.

*braces for another heated pro/rel flame war*

I can guarantee that nothing will happen until there is a crisis - is this a big enough crisis, time will tell.

There will need to be a limit on player movement between clubs. This is probably the biggest stumbling block - the weaker teams fear losing players that want to play in division one... But we also need to cater for legit reasons for changing clubs (such as abuse, conflicts, moving house etc)

I agree that the number of teams should be reduced to eight. I don't believe that there is many situations where a second team would then make div 1 anyway.

But if you do have two teams in div 1, how would we treat state champs since you can't play in division 2 under the current rules?

Players, players, players  lots of them. This is the answer. We need to seriously think how to attract kids to play ball. Make it more affordable, improve venues, better coaches, promote. Bball has become very elitist; many good kids/parents can not afford the expense and choose different sports. Clubs are struggling to fill teams with quality players. To play ball you have to pay for everything even for the privilege of being on the score bench. Come on give us a break you bleeding us dry!!!!!!

Limit clubs to one Div one team. The weaker clubs will hopefully drop to Div 2. Limit clubs to one Div 2 team. You may have a smaller number of teams in Div 1 and Div 2 but the competition will be stronger, better games, closer results and better competition.

Players at the stronger clubs may then filter down to Div 2 and 3 and then may move to weaker clubs buiding up their teams to maybe get back to Div 1 again. If no players move the comp stays the same but at least the better teams have better competition and the weaker teams will perform better in lower divisions.

Doesnt this kinda happen with ABL teams....you have what 10 or 12 spots in ten teams....the rosters fill up then players go looking for spots...players move clubs.....doesnt make all 10 clubs strong but maybe over time the weaker ones may improve.

There are way too many teams in the junior comp now anyway. Heaps of teams and players doesnt lend itself to a strong competition. Seems like a lot of teams pull out anyways and cause programming problems. The clubs with heaps of teams must be a nightmare to administer anyway.

Maybe social teams could absorb the excess players and give the clubs money through increased social comps where maybe a lot of players from friday nights and sat maybe should be playing.

Dont get me wrong im all for kids playing sport.....very much so...but maybe we need to look at the competition in which they should be playing thats all.

"State" players need a strong competition to play in week in and week out. Teams stacked with talent like the 18 girls (well done by the way) dont come along that often. Build a stronger comp and "state teams" and then results will improve.

Anon,

We still have our "super clubs" here in Melbourne as you would probably know in Dandenong, Nunawading and Melbourne. The difference is the depth behind these three in Frankston, Sandringham, Eltham, Knox, Werribee, Keilor. And a plethera of other clubs on the next level which in any given year can produce a quality team able to compete with the better teams. Add to this, the bigger country clubs are now entering teams in most Competitions and in makes it all the more interesting.

Our Competitions work like this.

Victorian Championship
20 teams (2 pools of 10)

Metro 1
12 teams

Metro 2
12 teams

Metro 3
12 teams

North West and East Qualified
the rest of the teams nominated

Our Pro/Rel as you call it is a fantastic way to reward clubs that have developed their teams over the past 2 yrs. The way it works is the VJBL Ranks the teams from 1 through to 100 or so based on the teams perforformance 2 yrs ago.

Ranking System
1-20
The 20 teams that played VC in U/14 in 2003 would be ranked 1 to 20 in U/16 2005

21-32
Ranking 21 to 32 would be the 12 teams that played Metro 1

33-44
Ranking 32 to 44 would be the 12 teams that played Metro 2

45-56
Ranking 45 to 56 would be the 12 teams that played Metro 3

Once these rankings are given the VJBL invites submissions for teams ranked incorrectly, and at their discretion they change the rankings accordingly.

Grading Season

Phase 1
In November phase 1 begins and works like this

Pool 1
consists of taems ranked 1-24 in 6 groups of 4 teams. Once the 4 teams have played each other the top team goes straight through to VC. The 2nd team plays the 3rd team from the next group and the winner of that game goes through to VC. this is known as a cross-over game. 12 teams are now in VC. The Loser of the crossover game and the 4th place team will have to compete in Phase 2 in January. These teams go into pool AA.

Pool 2
consists of teams ranked 25-40 in 4 groups of 4 teams and the top team joins pool AA. 2nd plays 3rd from the next group and the winner goes into pool AA and the loser goes to pool BB as does the 4th team.

Pool 3
consists of teams ranked 41-56 in 4 groups of 4 teams and the top team joins pool BB. 2nd plays 3rd from the next group and the winner goes into pool BB and the loser goes to pool CC as does the 4th team.

Phase 2
In January phase 2 begins and works like this

Pool AA
consists of 16 teams in 4 groups of 4 teams and the top team joins VC. 2nd plays 3rd from the next group and the winner goes into VC and the loser goes to Metro 1 as does the 4th team.

Pool BB
consists of 16 teams in 4 groups of 4 teams and the top team joins Metro 1. 2nd plays 3rd from the next group and the winner goes into Metro 1 and the loser goes to Metro 2 as does the 4th team.

Pool CC
consists of 16 teams in 4 groups of 4 teams and the top team joins Metro 2. 2nd plays 3rd from the next group and the winner goes into Metro 2 and the loser goes to Metro 3 as does the 4th team

After all this VJBL arranges Challenge Games for badly performed teams to play well performed teams from lower grades to decide the final Grades.

This may look quite confusing and it is, but it gets the right result.

Now, I'd like to say that the Victorian system is suffering from the 20 teams in VC and it should go back to the old structure of 16 teams or possibly 12. This would enable higher competition, more regularly. However I hear that Basketball Victoria are aware of this and personally I don't think the current structure will last.

There is a "Grading Map" on the VJBL website if you would like to know more.

does anyone know where the under 18 girls and boys nationals are being held next year (2006)???

adelaide for the 18's and melbourne for the 16's

Players, players, players  lots of them. This is the answer. We need to seriously think how to attract kids to play ball.

Realist you are smack on, more players is the answer. Competition is the answer, the more kids playing, the more competition on the div 1 players, and the stronger we become as a State.
The fix has to come from the bottom and push up.
Lets forget about div 1 and 2 for a second, shove them aside and call them something else.
Now look at the rest of the players, and why arent there a lot more of them.
1) Cost
2) Travel
3) They may want to play other sports
4) Expectations for money paid versus the service given by the clubs

Suggested fix
Have two competitions
Div 1 and 2 run in a similar format as they do now. They will become the elite competition.
Now grab all the teams in div 3 and below, form a North/South comp or even a North/South/East and West comp, to reduce the travel, prom/relegate to eliminate blow outs, set a cost structure similar to local comps eg. Unley, Golden Grove ect. and then play the games at a time that does not compete with every other sport.
Then get all the clubs to find as many teams as possible to enter these local comps, and get the numbers up.
Do this and within 5 years the other problems will go away.
Prom/Rel will never get of the ground because we as an association will structure to protect the weakest.
So we remove these protections (will never happen) or we put a structure in place to enable the weak Clubs to get stronger (this can happen)

Anon asked "Melhoops, how many rep teams would a dandenong have in, say, u16s and how many teams would they have in the Victorian CHampionship grade?"

Typically most of the bigger clubs, Dandy as an eg, would have up to 6 teams in each age group (smaller clubs less than 3)

Again the larger clubs, Dandy as an example, would grade two teams to VC...rules also only allow each club to qualify two teams to VC.

Rule prior to mid nineties with 12 (girls)16 (boys) team comps was also two teams, this was changed mid 90s to 1 and then back to what it is now with the 20 team comp.

(Mod: This post is not available.)

Anon / Trex,

The bigger clubs in Melbourne could have up to 8 teams in some age groups, usually the younger age groups for obvious reasons. There wouldn't be many clubs in this situation and the majority would average 3 to 4 teams in each age group. Personally I come from a club that dramatically increased it's numbers about 4 years ago through a recruitment drive at local schools and our own domestic program to the point that we had over 90 kids at our U/16 Boys try outs in Oct last year. From this we have 5 teams in U/16 Boys and we would have had more if we could get more coaches. This year we have a team in each age group in VC.

Dandenong have 1 team in U/16 VC and another in Metro 1 as does Nunawading. Kilsyth is the only team in U/16 Boys with 2 teams in VC, the 1st team is quite strong as you may have seen at easter and the second team haven't won a game.

Jay
Mentoring amongst coaches is great. and should be done. The leadership and development programs for players and coaches must be a club responsibility. Our protection policy's of weaker clubs does nothing to ensure development.
If you were one of the weaker clubs, and you were just informed that you no longer have a right to place teams in div 1 and 2, you have to earn the position, what would you do? Lie down and die, I dont think so. You would fight!
SASI coaches spend a large amount of time teaching basic skills. Skills that every player in 16 Div 1 and 2 should have. Most dont, that has to be a Club responsibility.
Just like any business, you go out and get the advise, training or expertise to ensure a market share, the market share is not a given as with basketball in SA.
I noticed that State Coaching Director coaching an eastern under 18 girls team both here and in Melbourne, maybe eastern asked for help!