good points and observations - you know your game.

Great post Red. Who were the standout players you saw at Vic Metro during your time watching them?

An excellent Op with some great analysis. There are a few issues that I see across the State program, impacting both the boys and girls programs.

1. Fear factor. Most teams are intimidated by the Vic teams. They lose the game in the first quarter, playing hesitant basketball. Once they settle in to the game they fight back and it evens out, but the game is gone by then.

2. Far too big a Sturt influence across the State program in SA. There are other tactics you can use. The State program doesn't have to just be Sturt's coaches and playbook. There are also other players from other clubs that just might improve the sides. If you really want to give the teams the best chance to win, they need to be more open.

Great post Red. Having also watched a couple of these girls age groups at this level for a few years now, these are good suggestions that I would largely agree with.

The challenge the coaches from the smaller States face is replicating the pressure to perform these skills in our own comps week in week out. Unfortunately the depth of talent means the top guards are not put under anywhere near the same pressure in weekly comps at home. If they were, I am confident they have the talent to quickly develop the skills to cope. I saw some good combinations of skilful and very fast SA guards but they just need to be exposed to this same level of pressure on a more regular basis to develop their passing and space creation/protection skills as they get away without it most weeks at home. This is particularly the case in the SA u16s with Sturt dominating this age group coming through for years now but better in the u18s with a greater range of teams being competitive. I liked your pro active suggestions to work on those 4 aspects but there is no simple substitute for replicating this in games which is what the Vic guards face on a weekly basis due to the depth of talent issue. The only way I see to overcome this is to have more regular training as State development players against each other or against an older age group or the boys one age group down perhaps but some of the clubs might not like losing players to this extra training if it means managing training loads by reducing training at their own clubs for the bigger picture.

The other issue that really affects these points is the lack of quality bigs. The games I have seen showed the SA and ACT bigs really struggled to set effective screens and be a physical presence in offence which allowed the ViC (and to a lesser extent NSW) guards to risk playing with more pressure as they rarely needed to help defend a big or worry about getting hit by a good screen. The development of quality bigs would significantly change the perceived need to finish at the rim and open up the high low game. A lot more work needs to go into developing the too few big options, both in skills but also fitness/athleticism where they trail the Vic bigs by a fair way.

Fitness and athleticism of many of these U16 and u18 girls also really concerns me and I don't see any focus on this at all under the Development Programs which must change if progress is to be made,

For mine this all comes back to getting these State level players together more often through the year to best simulate the same sort of pressure and to monitor and develop fitness and athleticism improvements. I believe the guard talent is certainly there in these age groups and cam come up to speed and match the Vics fairly quickly but the bigs is a bit a bit more challenging and is going to require a fair bit of work with the very few players that are available.

I appreciate the considered and intelligent comments of Vesta88 and HasBeen in this thread, which have illuminated and clarified my thoughts about this subject.

HasBeen points out the shallower depth of talent in domestic regional leagues we find in other states; and the lesser intensity of competition we find there. I agree. I reckon these 2 factors account for the two-thirds of the competitive gap we see. But I am asking a different question - not "why" does VicM enjoy sustained superiority but asking "how" does this superiority manifest itself in gameplay - hence my 4 tweaks. The "how" is important because it informs talent identification and coaching approach.

The gap is not just with the players - it is often with the coaches as well, and I think it is high time we recognise this. To this point I would add an additional "tweak factor" to my list of 4 tweaks I outlined earlier -

Tweak 5 - Watch your rotations and substitutions

In contrast to Vesta88 observations, I have seen matches when VicM teams were being outplayed by a smaller state team, yet later rally to win. And a big reason for such rallies is that VicM coaches are doing their jobs well - being super vigilant in identifying weaker players (or weaker play capability) in opposition teams, and promptly directing their own play to exploit such opportunities.

They are like sharks - they can smell weakness and are unforgiving.

For example, at the recent ECC I saw one of the smaller state teams enjoying a 10 point over VicM and then substitute in a promising, but quite raw, #5 into the game. The poor girl was never coached in the rudiments of pick and roll, and certainly could not defend against it. When this became evident, sure enough VicM ran the pick and roll against her - 4 or 5 times over the space of 3 mins of game time - and scored on each occasion. This action meant VicM were now on level terms with their self belief restored. It was such a downer for the players in the smaller state team. All the hard work that earned their 10 point lead evaporated in short order.

Separately, over successive Melb NJCs, I have witnessed a certain non Vic coach repeatedly concede matches by over representing bench players on the floor, and then revert to a sulk when the game inevitably turned against his team, blaming his players and berating the ref. To quote Roy and HG, for his Vic opponents, this guy was the "gift that kept giving" - his political skills made him immune to his failure to adapt.

The broader point here is - if you wish to be charitable (or political) in running your weaker players, understand who you are playing against.

So the take away is all other states play like girls and the Vic's play more like boys with a more aggressive style?

Reality - Yes.

Interesting comments and agree with what some say.

Interested to know who the recent appointments are in nsw who can make a difference to help nsw improve the get closer to the Vic's.

All of the skills that need to be upgraded - setting screens, hedging the defence on the pick and roll, protecting passing lanes, getting open and checking your opponent, driving with the idea of drawing defenders - all these features tend to be emphasised in 3on3 basketball format.

Unlike the boys, who play 3on3 at the drop of a hat - it is harder for the girls to get involved. I can only guess as to why this is so, but observe it appears to be evident in many countries.

Where you have mixed teams, a nice system I came across years ago involved female players manning up on each other, with no blocking of the female shot by the guys allowed (it counted as goal tendering). The blokes had to keep their hands within the cylinder. These games had to be be played with a certain spirit of goodwill. It usually helped if the games were overseen as 14, 15 year old boys can overdo the aggression and behave like jerks. I offer this as a incomplete training aid should low numbers be a problem.

How cansomeone say they do not produce as many top line players as other states.

Take a look at their numbers of players who are at the COE and in Australian Junior teams.

The game continues to evolve with changes coming and going depending on the strengths and weaknesses of state based clubs.
For many years and I'm only talking about SA, as that is who I predominantly have been involved in, have had a bunch of talented guards and small forwards or (1,2,3) based players, but always struggled with other states in the BIGS (4,5) department.
Defensively this has in my experience always created coaches to have the mindset of pressure on the ball. Denial strong side with help coming off the weak side and filling in the lanes. Emphasis on passing lane threat was never worried about as it was always the 1,2,3 scranbling to make up the shortfalls of the 4 & 5. The better coaches would see this and work their offensive patterns around that through there scouting. Coaches tampered with full court, half court traps that worked, but only for the minute bursts that were used in. This often led to the starters being tired and any points made up would be lost again, as it was just going back to scramble defence.
Offensively, I understand your thoughts on setting screen or lack there of, however the best State team performance was based on a coach running his offensive patterns through a series of Blur screens. Other states had no idea at the time to counter this, which resulted in a pretty good performance by that particular squad.
My observation over these many years involved, Defensively much more work is needed on the 4 & 5 spots. More work on Filling the lane, hedging on outside shooters, too many flat footed players, boxing out all positions, hands up and out to cover passing avenues and the key, communication.
Offensively working on the players hands as far too often after the roll the bigs have trouble with catching the pocket passes etc from drive entry coming from the 1,2 & 3's. Kids that are identified at younger age groups should not be sterotyped as just bigs. Give them a ball and make them do the same amount of skill set work as the others. That includes mid range shooting as well as working on inside drills for close to rim finishing.
I'm not sure what they call State Coaching Coordinators these days, as they seem to come up with some wonderful titles, but what Red has said is some great acknowledgement of where the game is at.
I only hope SA's SCC gets the opportunity to read this and put some thought into "tweaking" some of Reds thoughts.
Note, I have no idea on who Red is, but for someone to put so much thought and then put onto this forum, deserves a civil response. Nice job Red.

Nice post BobnCat with many, many good points made.

As you know for the ECC the SA metro squad was broken into 2 teams. One of the teams was stronger - I don't presume this was the intention, it probably just turned out that way. I did notice there were few by way of taller players in any of the SA teams. The taller girls in the squad were more like 3s, or stretch 4s at most. NSW had 3 players who outsized anyone in the SA teams. VicMet had 4 players.

I have never been a fan of the 5 man out system of offence that SA teams have employed. This is where penetration happens off the dribble from the perimeter, with the dribbler forces the shot or kicks the ball out. I have seen Sturt play this system in NJCs in the past, and often they have high quality smalls and mids who play it well.

But I will be frank with you - I think it is a game plan that is good at beating low and mid tier regional teams, but it finds it limit against the larger Vic regional teams.

This is why Sturt often struggles to break into the top 8 in nationals. IMO, against the big teams, your game plan has to include Hi-Lo play action. It may not the centrepiece of the offence, but it needs to be there. Otherwise, your opponents' guards will close in quicker and really place a lot of perimeter pressure on, and no matter how good are your guards, the defensive pressure proves overwhelming.

I offer the following open question to the forum: a chicken and egg problem.

The lack of quality size means smaller state teams respond by employing offensive systems that emphasise guard action with the bigs essentially being a support act.

I get it - if the bigs are routinely fumbling the ball, then smaller states would be crazy to run systems that rely on them handling and securing the ball.

But this choice - when repeated again and again, year after year - has resulted in coaches overlooking the potential offered by bigs and neglected their development. And they neglect to train the guards in how to read and properly pass to the big. And when the pass is misdirected, say at a big's feet, or a lob pass at the wrong angle that forces the big to break their seal, coaches (who are 95% former guards) presume it is the big that is at fault.

They train the bigs them AS IF THEY WERE GUARDS, stationed on the perimeter, with all the room in the world. When often, for the bigs to be really effective, they should be pre-positioned at the post, where it is a battle of inches.

Training a big to handle themselves in a post leads to a very different set of choices than that faced by guards on the perimeter; very different set of decision rules; much greater emphasis on ball security and passing. It is a different world. Dribbling is not such an asset - you don't want your big putting the ball on the floor near the post.

So that's your chicken and egg problem - if you skew game play and development away from bigs, don't be surprized there are few decent bigs available to play.

"I have never been a fan of the 5 man out system of offence that SA teams have employed."

You mean you don't like the same offense the national teams run?

527, Red is referring to Girls teams. Those two medals were on the boys side.

I don't agree with everything you've written, Red, but you've clearly put a lot of thought into it and have genuine insights. Thanks for sharing.

I'd just run the best sort of game that suits my personnel

All this chatter about the record of Sturt girls, reflecting the fact that South Aussies are strongly engaged with the Hoops.com.au website. I am an outsider with no vested interest in how Sturt perform.
That said, my impression in watching Sturt over the years - when they play at NJCs - is that they are consistently well organised and well trained. They are a credit to SA basketball. That said, I reiterate my central thesis that Sturt's gameplan places it at a competitive disadvantage versus the storied Melb clubs.

I commend my fellow posters for demanding "datapoints" to test my thesis, but i do note that posters brought little data of their own to the discussion, although that does not cause them to check their Frank Driben claims of "nothing to see here" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdFl__NlOpA).

So I chased down SportsTG results of the NJC, which anybody can do.

In 2019, the U14 girls did okay, they beat Dandenong a pool game by 1 point, finished 2nd in their pool, but then posted a succession of solid losses to Hawthorn, Nunawading and a composite NZ team. A good effort - but do these results invalidate my central thesis? No. In 2018, they finished last in their pool.
As for the U16s, they finished 3rd in their pool in 2019, losing to Ballarat & Sandringham. Based in the bottom half of the table, they encountered a series of friendly crossovers - beating the ACT (no offense) and Manly (ditto) before losing to Bulleen. In 2018, the U16s were competitive but finished 3rd in their pool.
As for the U18s, they finished last in a tough pool group, but were meritorious in losing to Bulleen, Manly and Bendigo. The U18 group in 2018 was the best performing of all teams reviewed here - finishing second in a tough pool, did a great job in defeating Bulleen and Knox but fell to Forrestville and Dandenong later on.

Sorry - 2 seasons across 3 age groups

Record the misses as well as the hits

2017
u14G come 13th
U16G come 11th
U18G come 2nd (well done)

2016
u14G finish 3rd in pool, play well against non-Vic teams to finish about 9th
U16G did not qualify
U18G finished last in the pool group.

So that makes it 4 seasons across 3 age groups. I have provided more data than the sum of contributions from other posters on this forum.

My impression - and this is a chat forum, not an academic journal - is that in junior girls the big 4 vic clubs have probably the best record over the past 4 to 5 years. Melbourne, Bulleen, Nunawading and Dandenong, with Knox, Diamond Valley and Hawthorn all top tier I think. Situation in Vic is evolving with Sandringham and Hawthorn really moving up. Sturt would one of 2 or 3 best performing non-Vic clubs over this time. I have a lot of respect for Sturt.

Anon writes "if you do stats for the competition it shows that Sturt would be the 5th placed club based on results, not opinions.
Red84 is allowed his opinion, other people can disprove his opinion through facts."

But Anon is NOT offering any facts at all. And without evidence he/she has not disproved a thing. Anon talks a confident game, but Anon is simply repeating assertions without substantiation.

I can tell you one thing - if Sturt were "the 4th best performed club at Classics over time" as Anon asserts, it certainly has NOT been over the past 4 years. Any punter can check SportsTG results for themselves and they will replicate my results.

As for Anon - your extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The onus is on you to offer data, not more puffed up claims. Otherwise your posts border on trolling.

Surely the ultimate goal should be to develop players who have the potential to play for Australia or to play professionally. I suspect that both clubs and State organisations are putting too much emphasis on 'results' in the competitions and not enough on player development.

For instance in SA I think Sturt spend too much time playing full court traps in younger years. Yes it helps them win, and winning attracts players from other clubs, but they develop less really high level players than they should for their size.

SA shouldn't beat Victoria at National carnivals. Vic Metro have a much, much bigger pool to draw from. The goal should not be to beat Victoria. It should be to develop players for the National side. If SA can develop more professional level players per player than Victoria does, well then they have 'beaten' Victoria. That should be the only stat that matters.

Not a Sturt follower, in fact I do not like Sturt as days past, they recruit talent from other clubs that in a city of maybe just over 1 million people and other sports to compete against, made it difficult to compete. However, they have developed a program that is well structured and in most cases, teams well coached. Generally, they compete well against the better clubs in Victoria, but by draining the pool from other clubs locally, it creates less competition, locally, hence lack of close games that could further develop the playing group for when, they compete against Vic. based clubs. Please no haters going at me about player recruitment, I am talking from the past, (maybe 5 years ago and beyond), not sure if it continues today.
From the outside, Forrestville have always had a good program and a stable of good talls. I have watched some of there players develop into good talent, but again only coming from the outside, it seems to be a political jungle if your kid has an ounce of talent and your not in the right party!

"in SA I think Sturt spend too much time playing full court traps in younger years. Yes it helps them win, and winning attracts players from other clubs, but they develop less really high level players than they should for their size."

Nothing wrong with trapping from 14's and above. It still teaches containing the ball and man to man principles to some degree. Obviously a lot better than playing a zone. Sturt actually mix up their defense more than other SA teams.

They do develop a lot of high level players. Not sure what you are talking about their size, as they are about to the 4th worst club in terms of number of teams in SA

"Forrestville have always had a good program and a stable of good talls. I have watched some of there players develop into good talent, but again only coming from the outside,"

On the girls side some of that is true. On the boys side it isn't true at all. Eagles have more teams than any SA Club so they should be doing a lot better

Thanks Vesta88 and Anon766 - A naive question - Do you (or others) know if there a difference between the states with respect to how interventionist are their governing agencies in limiting player transfers so as to prevent successful clubs hoarding talent to the detriment of the domestic competition?

In equal measure, is there a difference in whether governing agencies in each state are more inclined to intervene to support a regional club undergoing a bout of misfortune?

I think it is optimal for state competitions to have at least 4 or 5 clubs that are consistently strong. I could be wrong here but I observe over the years high volatility in the fortunes of certain SA regional clubs with the likes of Central Lions and Norwood rising and falling.

I think state bodies need to be more interventionist in the smaller states because the thinness of the competition means hoarding player talent and deterioration of local coaching has a profound impact in retarding the quality of the state competition. I would consider awarding fixed term coaching contracts to private agencies to help bolster failing clubs. That is a subject worthy of its own thread.

Sturt trap in Under 10's and in fact play full court traps exclusively from U10-14. It's really only at about U14's they start expanding out, and then they add a half court trap... I've seen Sturt teams in U10 & 12 regularly trapping in Div 2 & 3. It's not a one off, it is a club decision.

Vesta88 Its called Ball, Plugger, Rotator. Different names for other clubs.
It is effective in junior play within SA, but gets found wanting once played against Vic. clubs. That was established years ago and as far as I've seen, still being taught today. Sturt for years have played versions of Dribble, Drive, Entry for simplifying a name on offence. This has altered by the looks of late. I think Mr Butler may have tweaked some things. Either way, it is a decent base to start with and I know other clubs have modelled some of their coaching books/manuals on similar tactics.