Mildura 14 Girls are a very good team,have won every contry Vic carnival this season.

Why are Mildura at our tournament??

Murray Bridge girls in the 14's to play Mildura in the GF. Dark horse is Broken Hill, coach Kate has them primed for an upset!

Mildura have been coming to our carnival for many years now I guess they are a little like Broken Hill with Adelaide being the closest capital city, I dont have a problem with both those teams being in our carnival.

Pirie by a mile in 14 boys???? Centrals 14 boys beat them by 70 points and four or five of them play for barossa so they may have a chance against pirie.

Barossa are a D2 team! Pirie has a front line of 6'5 and 6'2, with a couple of handy guards to boot. Port Pirie were U12 champs 2 years ago, with only Eastern Hills at their level. The panthers will be unbeatable this weekend!

6'5" player isn't playing

Barossa have best point guard in the state

Oh and they're guards arent that good, centrals showed them that with four of those guards playing for barossa. In fact pirie guards couldn't get the ball over halfway that regularly.Hence around a 90 to 20 score line.

#413 Everybody thinks their kid is the best in the state! Massive bias statement.

bahahaha best in the state should never be mentioned in the context of a 12 yr old boy. LOL unbeleivable.

How do you know he's not the best guard in the state? Are you suggesting one of those pirie boys are? If so then you have no idea.

I'm going on the fact that I see this boy play in metro sa league every week and pretty much is unstoppable one on one. Also made squad to go to nz so cannot be that bad.

The Barrosa gaurd is the best gaurd in the state. By a mile. Go watch the Centrals v sturt 14s final next Friday if you have your doubts. Whilst I'm not the original poster so I can't say "that wasn't the kids parent" I can say that I am of no relation to the kid in question

Anyway my point was there are some other good players out there so to say a team will win by a country mile is presumptious.

1. So the teams Mildura meet in a semi and knock out stop an SA team getting a grand final spot. Also affect Spooner assoc. award. ???

2. Do they pay the huge affiliation fees to SA Country??? or just get a benefit of being able to show up.

3. Do they pay the same carnival nomination fee as SA affiliated assoc. ??

4. Have other SA Country associations been placed in Div2 as there are not Div1 spots? (One being taken by Mildura)


So SAC office we all know you read this forum, give some truthful answers

Oh no, it was always going to happen wasn't it? H'ere come thu dueling banjos!

#427 The player I assume you are referring to is a talent, extremely quick. Unfortunately he only has a right hand and no jumpsuit to speak of. Would be good in the country comp as this is the equivalent to D2!

Centrals are only in the final because no one can out rebound the 6'5 monster for Pt Pirie, every team sags off the other four on the court. Perhaps Centrals has the best 1-4 spots in the state also.

S.A teams play in the Vic championships - Vic teams play in the S.A championships - Broken hill play in the S.A championships = Great competition for all players involved,yes some teams may miss out on winning the GREAT SHEEPSTATION that is up for grabs but I think its the parents that care more about that than the kids who play, I know of alot of longtime friends that have been made between the 3 states because of these teams mixing in.
"ITS JUST A GAME"

456 considering Centrals only lost by 7 to forestville (who came 2nd) when they played without thier 6ft 5 centre, without thier back up centre, and without the new 6ft 2 kid coming into the group, I wouldn't say the starting centre is the ONLY reason they are playing in the final. I'm sure if forestvile didn't have thier best player they would have lost. (You'd have to agree forestviles best player is worth more than 7 points). Using that common sense, Centrals minus the starting centre playing Any team minus thier best player would win. Could be to do with thier coach who has coached the best placed Adelaide team at the Under 14 nationals 2 years in a row, and who won state champs last year, could be because of thier excellent depth with the aforementioned gaurd playing a huge part in thier success, or it could be because the whole team are a great group of kids and very receptive to the coaching they are given. Realistically it is probably a combination of all those reasons, and not JUST because they have 1 outstanding player.

The outstanding guard played about 2 minutes as a bottom aged player and turned the ball over every time he touched it. His stats from the 14 Nationals 5 months ago aren't that of the best guard in the state! Some really big statements made by some parents that don't have a clue!

Last year he was obviously a bottom ager... If you have a look at the 2 guards who started ahead of him, you'll see they are both in the NITP teams (not bad for bottom agers) and 1 (maybe both but I'm not 100% sure) is still in the race to make the under 16 state team (believe thier down to the last 25ish).... So because a player gets little time as a bottom ager, playing behind 2 of the better guards in the comp at the time, that means he automatically can't be the best the following year as a top ager??? Even despite those facts, a player can't develop and become better than they were last year??? I would say its not me who is clueless.....

Anon #463

Load of rubbish about every time he touched it he turned it over.

Stats at nationals wasn't that of the best guard in the state! Are you a moron? He was a bottom ager (some teams don't have a bottom ager), played under arguably two of the best guards in the state who were top 10 in scoring at nationals (one in top 5) although not sure how they ended up. Also he started some games too cause played good defense so stats don't mean everything.

Anyone that has seen under 14 wouldn't deny him being one of the best if not best guard in the state for his age group.

Not every one can have stats like you did at nationals.

Anon #456

Don't know a heap of under 14 boys that have a reliable jump shot and definitely don't see it on a Friday night if they do! I also see lot of games that don't have the dominance that he does so not only can they not shoot the ball that well, they can't get to the rim as well, nor can they rebound as well, nor can they defend as well.

As for your thinking that they only win due to the big that's rubbish. Other teams have multiple boys over 6 foot so they should be able to challenge on the boards and box out. At nationals there was a team that had a 6'8" boy who was long and athletic. Centrals tallest player was 6'2" so according to your thinking the other team should of one but instead lost by 30 to 40! But wait your saying if you have height you automatically win. So how did they not win not only that game but the whole tournament as they had tallest player. In fact their point was long and athletic and just under 6 foot.

So according to you shouldn't they have won?

If they only win cause of the big guy why did they beat Sturt (who are in the grand final) at Pasadena when the big guy was injured, couldn't even get up the court properly, played a quarter at most, scored only 5 points and same rebounds??? If they only win with him then how did they beat the other grand finalist? In fact centrals were up double digits all game and controlled the game. But they only win cause of their big.

How does a team with two or three kids who are over six foot lose to a team with one boy over six foot????

How about people just let the kids play and stop being negative?????

Let's promote players, teams or basketball in SA. In the end we want and hope that the state develops and becomes more competitive.

Barossa Valley vs. Port Pirie in the U14 boys.

The Mount Gambier U18 lads to win their respective championship.

Mount Gambier to win the U14 girls.

Not too sure what will happen in the U18 ladies?

Finally, Mount Gambier to take out the John Spooner Trophy!

Peace Out!!!

The centrals ferals are well and truly out and about! Lots of hype over a 12 year old kid. This kid must be a superstar going on the above posts. We will see were he is in 12 months time, I've seen a million 12 year old next best guard in the state! Let the kids enjoy the game, mum & dad don't continue to post crap.

Amen! People need a life outside of this crap! We are talking country basketball folks, the best country kids all play metro league anyway! If the kid is the next Dante get him out of the country system right now!!

He's a good player but all this talk is over the top.

Let's just support SA basketball and hopefully get better as a state.

Knowing his parents it's not them posting it and as for centrals ferals that's a classy comment to make.

Previous comments are not classy, if it's not the kids parents then it's someone with a fixation on a 12 yr old boy. For the record the kid in question is ok, but was behind 3-4 guards last year. He was the second best guard from country on that centrals team with the lad from kadina playing back up minutes behind the managers son and the two NITP players mentioned. To much hype mum

No he's not the next exum but people are probably defending him as they're being too negative.

How about people just leave it and wish all the teams good luck for the weekend!

I wish my team good luck in trying to stop this kid in question!

On a more serious note, our family has just moved to Yankallia & apparently this is country zoned (go figure)! Our daughter plays D1 with South Adelaide currently, and probably isn't in the same class as this boy from Centrals but loves her basketball. Who is the development officer for our area? I called the SA Country office and the women that awnsered the phone told me that this isn't country, then put me on to a man called Stewart who said he would check and call me back but never did? That was 2 weeks ago! We enquired at Willunga about playing this weekend but because we didn't play in their competition were knocked back? We are just really frustrated and completely in the dark of who looks after this area? Can anybody help me please with a contact or name? Seriously.

Yankalilla would fall into either willunga or great southern(victor harbor) you may find at both associations you may need to play locally to be eligible to play for the representative teams.

Michael Rogers would the allocated sa country development officer

Mal penno from willunga or bill kelton from great southern as my recommended contact points

Thank you very much. I can't believe it has been this frustrating, are Bill or Malcolm volunteers or do they work for country basketball? Is Michael Rogers the right person to speak with? I haven't heard to many nice things about this person.

Malcolm and bill are volunteers yes, very respected people in each area,

I am a personal friend of Michael Rogers so I've only got good things to say about him

Michael would really only be able to assist you in getting in ontact with each of the individual associations eg willunga or great southern

Didn't he recently have some serious legal problems? I know this sounds really bad but if you believe what people are saying?

If this discussion about this guard is not his mum posting the its all a little bit creepy.

Omg get over the guard convo and talk about the state country champs

Good luck teams!

Ro Jo????

Who won under 14 div 1? Pirie?

Barossa beat Eastern Hills convincingly in the grand final. Eastern beat Pt Pirie in the semis.

Hmmm pretty sure I said to look out for barossa!

Where's the person who posted pirie would win it by a country mile? Eastern Hills only remotely close. Didn't barossa beat eastern in the final. Also barossa div 2 apparently.

No team was able to get within 30 of barossa and pirie lost by 60!
Div 2 team hahaha

Go to bed school tomorrow

^^ I actually think 939 is an adult ???!?! Tragic.

Who won the 14 Girls?

#939 Pirie team played without it's 6'5 center and their 6'2 forward only played half the games as he was involved in a family wedding back in Pirie. Eastern Hills missing three of it's State reps, so I would say both teams dramatically under full strength! Full credit to the Barossa boys, they played well as a team all weekend. But I would have loved to have seen a full strength 14 boys field compete this weekend.

At the end of the day my feeling is Barossa would have met Pirie in the final.

Alas, we will never know! The boys from the hills played the worst defense out of any team at the champs. They scraped in against teams all weekend and were poorly coached in the final. The settlers played a great team game with their entire team working well together. On the flipside hornets were happy to let one player shoot the ball on every posession, causing lay-up after lay-up for their opponents. I would have to agree Pirie - Barossa would have been the benchmark. The tiny guard from the Barossa was good, but he had no one guarding him and most of his points were lay-ups from hills turnovers.

More importantly, how did the best guard in Australia play?

No one said he was best guard in Australia, grow up.

They said currently he's one of the best in the state when you compare him to metro comp every week. I think most people that see that comp would agree that he's up there.

At least it's a positive comment about someone, not like the negativity that you and most people are like on here.

NBA scouts were in attendance, travelling up to watch the Barossa domestic U14 comp this week!

Wow childish and the sad thing is that I think it's an ex player parent saying this

Sour grapes much

Haha, NBA scouts in attendance! Hilarious! Who ever wrote that needs to be signed up to a children's book company, because it has got fiction written all over it!

NBA = Norwood Basketball Association

If only you knew how true that joke was about the NBA.

I am from the Barossa and players traditionally go down to Centrals to take the next step, but Norwood tried to muscle in some time ago by turning up to DNSP and offering Div 1 spots to some players in the Barossa as well as Eudunda. Pretty attractive offer too. Basically $20 fees and free uniform. Someone's got to pay for that - can only assume it came out of the fees paid by some kid living in Newton who was bumped down to Div 2.

Why would Norwood not want to focus their recruitment from the suburbs around them? Are the kids no good down there?

They have same issues when players from other clubs who go begging to Norwood and say" please let me play Div 1 for you and get the benefit of all the development"

This practice has been common at Norwood for the past few years. My son paid $28 for the winter season and received a free uniform just because we lived an hour and a half away. It was great value for us and we were only required to train once a week. I felt embarrassed everytime I spoke to parents who lived in and around the Norwood area, this seemed to cause bad blood between the local parents and country parents at times and was spoken about often.
I am unsure what other clubs do?

Mildura always welcome at SA Country Champs, yes Mount gambier send u/16 girls and boys as well as u/18 teams to Victorian Country Champs and have been fairly sucessful in the last 2 years, being runer up in u/16 girls on both occasions, i watched this year lost by 4 to Mildura, in a game that Mildura opened up about a 15 point lead by quarter time only for the Mount girls to come roaring back to get with in 1 point with a minute to play. look forward to a re match if it occurs because there 2 teams it seems do not like each other much and play the game hard and fast, a great game to watch.

looking at the u/16 girls draw it would seem as if there are 7 to 8 potential winners, best field in years, will be a great tournament