Is it actually happening?

Actually under 20s can be 19 as well. They can also be 17.

Under 23 means under 23 so the player would have to be under 23 that calendar year

its all on sportingpulse in the abl news section. explains everything

http://www.sportingpulse.com/assoc_page.cgi?client=1-3656-0-0-0&sID=39560&&news_task=DETAIL&articleID=127607

The purpose of the U23 comp is to create a bridge for younger players between juniors and ABA and to retain players. I believe this will not occur.

Why?

Firstly ABA players can play U23 div1 in the same week. Have a look at the rosters, especially on the womens side. Many of these ABA players are U23 and are allowed to play both. Why the need for the bridge to ABA when they are already playing there. Sturt men for example I believe have at least 3 U23 players in their starting five.

Fringe players will be more tempted to switch to other sports when they find themselves pushed down divisions as the top divisions are filled with ABA quality players. Why play div 3 or lower U23's when you are only 18 when you have choices to switch to a higher grade of football.

Perhaps the solution is to restrict starting ABA players from playing in U23 comp!

I was looking forward to playing U20 Div 1 next season with better umpires and stopping the clock but that won't happen now. Football is now a real possibility for me!

Anon I fear you may be right. I wonder if this competition committee thought of asking the players what they would prefer to ensure they remained in the sport and developed!!!

if your not elite you can play in div 2 23's

Let's think about it. Div 1 probably made up of ABA team + squad members.

Then they need to accommodate first year U20's from this year; U18's moving up plus all the under 20's who would have moved out of this age bracket plus perhaps some players coming back to U23's from seniors as before they were too old. I am not sure 3 div will be enough and then I guess they will go with this ridiculous north and south pool arrangement to squeeze more teams into a division. Great - get pushed down divisions, play with the poorer refs, play the same teams over and over, changing times between 6 and 10 - sounds like something I don't want to sign up for!!

Then don't... Go sign up for U/20s footy. What? After U/18s they go straight into seniors in footy?

District basketball is for elite players, if your not good enough go play social basketball, practice your skills and get good enough

vesta, half the kids playing in under 20's at the moment are the same guys playing ABA, the clubs that will benefit will be clubs with a young ABA list, those players can play under 23's, current div 1 players playing u20's can play div 2 and develop some more

Wow - talk about being paranoid about Sturt!!

Anon 884;

Brilliant comment. I wonder why football doesn't have an U23 league as a go between to assist them getting to AFL/SANFL level but basketball which had U20's now wants U23's??

Footballers can be developed up to U18's then go straight to seniors including AFL but not basketball. Perhaps the development at all levels in basketball is not as good as people think especially compared to football. Perhaps BSA now realise that and think "Hmmm maybe they need more time"

cant the ABL team train wednesday night??, light training sunday, heavy training wednesday, be some fit boys running around in the ABA which will make for a better competition

ABL Teams will be training Tuesday and Thursday.
Youth League will NOT contain any ABL players
All Abl reserves will be playing Monday nights.

I know thats what will be happening at a few clubs.

In the girls this will mean Youth league will be the old 21.2.
In the men it will be a watered down 20 mens standard, but still a reasonable std of non abl players.

anon 980

think you will find eligible players playing ABA want to play in the youth league.

for everyon bagging this idea, if you are finishing under 20's in a few weeks time and were probably looking at playing div 3 or lower mens, you know have 3 more years of playing against people your own age, not ten years older and physically stronger than you. You may not play division 1 but you should be aiming to play division 1 in 3 years time

Eligible wont play both because it will conflict with the ABL training which will be moving to tuesday nights

i love how all the ABA coaches have nothing better to do than get on here and tell everyone that trainings will be tuesday nights

because its secret squirel

Ummm, isn't it all on the SportingPulse website? Or are people just too lazy...

I have just been doing some numbers and with this expanded youth league I believe we will have at least 50 plus players who would play in the Men's side of the comp. Given their is only three divisions it looks like 5 teams of 10, with two in each of the the 2 bottom divsions - in fact could be more. So not much court time for many and if other clubs have a similar situation then I can't see how this will retain players.

why not have 6 teams of 8

coz that is 48. Actually at our club I think it will be upwards of 60 players after I chatted to a few over 20's who moved to social after moving on.

There is something ill thought out here. Basing it on an eastern state's approach and pushed by one club in particular in SA.

Can BSA handle all the potential teams that may eventuate all on a Tuesday night. Please don't tell me they have still to work on the details as the devil is in the detail. If they havent done this then I strongly suggest that it is a superficial review and ill informed.

i no that our club more than likely will only be suiting under 23 teams and more than likely not suiting a monday night team with abl squad members and continuing our monday night training. only really effects 1-2 players in the squad.

we are thinking the other way - our U23's in ABA (non starters) are more likely to play Reserves and not U23's so we can have our non starting ABA group be able to play together and develop as a team.

Now this creates a problem - we will have unbalanced competitions and the quality of competition will be compromised. On the U23 side this has a ripple effect all the way down through the divisions!!

Anon Thats very interesting, I suppose it depends on how many over age non abl starters each team will have and how strong each clubs junior programs are as to what teams will decide to do. Does that mean the abl squad will train tuesday nights?

depends if your club thinks winning a div 1 u23 flag is more important than a div 2 reserves flag. i would rather the div 1 one and hope to transform that into an ABL flag in the next few years

All this shows is that unless there is an agreed approach from the clubs we could end up with two half baked competitions!!

I have heard that almost one of our U20 teams, mainly first years have decided to give basketball away due to U23 and that some of our U18's will be doing the same!! SO much for player retention

Well virtually all of ours are going on and many of those would have dropped out under the old system because they couldn't break into senior men's teams. It's all about how club's manage the transition and our club seems to have managed it well.

Anon 225 - I think one difference is you are talking about 2nd year U20's who had no pathway if they couldn't get into seniors which is the same as our club. But what seems to be happening is we are having a higher drop out rate for 2nd year U18's and 1st year U20's compared to other years.

I wonder with this drop out does this create an issue in several years time when these juniors would be/should be still playing in U23's. I guess time will tell but I am of the view that numbers will eventually decline.

Virtually all our Under 18s are continuing on to Under 20s. Again its more the quality of your coaching and how the transition is managed that will determine success or failure not how good or bad the new competition structure is. If management handles it positively then the members will pick up on that and will be more likely to embrace it. That has been our experience and so far its been very positive.

But there is no U20's???

Sorry, I meant on to Under 23s

did the competition committee speak to juniors to ask there opinion. Given one of the reasons was for retention of players surely asking the players would be a good start rather than assuming what would make a junior stay involved with basketball