page 89 of todays paper!!!

love him or hate him Boti's finally writing articles that are worthy of reading.
BSA are a joke, they expect district basketball to pay premium money and all they give us is lip service and inferior products in return.
The sooner BSA stops using district clubs as it's cash cow and starts giving back to the competition that generates the lion share of it's income, the sooner basketball becomes the winner in this state.

As much as I hate to say it, Boti was spot on today with his criticism.

I feel that BSA has forgotten that they are here to primarily promote and develop basketball and that district basketball is not a cash cow, but rather their bread and butter. And if they dont get it together soon, they will lose that component's financal benefit.

The only issue above would be that running finals at the Adelaide Arena (dome) on a Sunday would not be good as it would clash with other events, which is why it was moved to Fridays from Sundays previously. ie City to Bay other sport, church etc. Not much point running a Friday night sport and then having finals on another day if some people cant make it.

what about the under 16 girls game, he cancelled the game winning basket. Does that make him a mavs supporter?

Must agree with "Really" on all points, especially that it should be kept on the friday night, that was a huge crowd there on friday and it was actually one of BSA's good descisions to actually have the finals on the same day/night as its played througout the year.

Having said that surely some negotiating could have had the court upgrade at AA be put off a week or moved forward a week or two to accomodate at least the div 1 Grand finals!

I think the AA was available on Friday, resurfacing started Monday. I would have hoped, like Boti, that BSA would have been able to convince AA management to wait 2 days to start the process.

But the AA is probably worse for watching 2 games than Wayville is. For 1 of the courts anyway. As a non-eagle I thought Friday was a great night with close games and fantastic crowd. But not having a scoreboard working for over a month isn't acceptable.

The only thing worse is that M/vale has had 3 score boards out of action for more than 4 months and BSA played finals there. Funny we rearly see these issues at stadiums BSA hires from other people.

get over it ANON the decision in the girls game was correct and i am not a mavs person.

Boti going to south hey, he going to coach the under 18 div 2 girls cos they didnt have a div 1 team this year

no what im saying is that just because she cancelled the game in the boys game she is a norwood supporter, does that mean that the umpire who cancelled the basket in the girls game is a mavs supporter
I think both calls in the games were correct, let the players play it out for another couple of minutes to decide the game rather than the umpire deciding it themselves

also doesnt her sister play in the norwoods women side, is she not allowed to support her sister??

is he coaching the under 23 team at south too

He was covering the game in Townsville on Sunday. Could not be in two places at once.

Wayville is definitely the place to host Div 1 GF's. But they need to play on 2 courts. Ieither put stands on court 3, or pts stands facing both ways on court 2 & play games on 1 & 3. But the atmosphere was great at Dvi 1 GF night... much better than when hosted at he Dome. Keep it there, just tweak it a bit.

I have to admit, the articles of Boti are on the money, and this is from a person he really doesn;t like.

Lets have a look at the past few weeks from our governing body

U23 Men debarcle with one game having 5 minutes and the other 3 minutes for overtime

The lack of "decent scoreboards" around the stadiums for many years.....some not working at Wayville and M Vale for longer than you can think, no shot clock on court 2 at Hillcrest but having Div 2 Mens and Womens games

The terrible handling of SBL and the major events aligned to them

No sponsors

No facitliy improvements and we still use Marion and Hillcrest and St Clair

No listening skills, people want more not less games

Uneven Competitions

No interest in Div 3 or lower

No SASI funding

Plenty of mirrors ( they are all looking into things)

Wonder hopw the new Lighting Coach and his team felt training at Marion this week because AA was unavailable .I dont hink the new coach would have seen anything like it.

I am not a real fan of Boti usually, but you have to say he has finally started to look at the real issues in Basketball in SA and he is on the money

To suggest that Ireland is a Norwood supporter is ridiculous. Give yourselves an uppercut. She did a fantastic job on Friday night, in fact both referees did.

Also, I've been to every grand final night for probably fifteen years now, and that was the best atmosphere I've ever witnessed. Please BSA, don't ever move the finals back to the Dome, which is far too big to have any atmosphere with that number of people.

good promoter of herself!!

Back to the original comments Re Boti's Roast, i found it difficult to believe that at a Grand Final night Div 1 that court 2 larger score clock was not working. Again we all acknowledge that some of our stadiums are great if we were in the 1960 but time has moved on but little seems to change in the basketball world in SA. We did have a great meeting of minds a couple of years ago when Wayne Jackson and others looked into improving the sport but little has happened. Basketball is being treated very poorly considering our Aust Women are in the top 3 in the World and our men are also doing well for our population size. I for one hate seeing this great sport suffer and would like something in concrete set down and followed in lifting our standards and profile.

That umpire did the game the week before and let many behind play unsportmanship Norwood fouls go, pretending she did not notice them, and then gets ansy with the spectators because they attempt to bring it to her attention! If her allegiance to Norwood is that strong she should NOT be allowed to referee their games.

#651 - you mustn't be paying attention, so let's try again. She has no allegiance to Norwood. She is a Centrals coach, as is her mother. As for the unsportsmanlike stuff, some of the stuff the Sturt boys did that night was disgraceful. Probably a good idea to get your own backyard in order before you start pointing the finger at Norwood.

Also, spectators who try to bring things to the umpire's attention are the type of spectators who probably should stay home and watch TV instead of coming to watch their kid play. Ugly spectator syndrome is alive and well!!

Does the umpire have a duty of care to the players or the spectators? If it is the players then refs should concentrate on the game and make calls on rough play on both sides. Then the spectators wouldnt have to attempt to bring it to their attention. yeah? problem solved. Happy players, Happy spectators.

#672, sounds like you're as "Jack Toft" as me!

Read what I wrote - Does the umpire have a duty of care to the players OR the spectators?

My question is about referees that want to spend too much time admonishing the spectators instead of controlling the game in play where the duty of care should be directed.

You let a game get out of control and not call fouls for whatever reason you are not meeting your duty of care which is the refs responsibility. Isnt it?

Refs are getting paid - no-one else is!

get it now?

#681 - The game was decided by the players. West won. What a ridiculous statement.

Ireland has every right to umpire at this level

WOW, some pathetic comments and complaints on here. Once again hoops is being used to attack a player (number 22) who just plays with passion something SA often lacks at times. Ireland has had issues with norwood throughout the year and it is a ridiculous statement saying she favours norwood. End of the day west won, good for them, but obviously not good enough for some people. West and Norwood although norwood had not beaten west this year, had several close encounters the only blowout being the semifinal, therefore the gf should have been close. I think some people need to get over themselves and realise everything is done and dusted

Ireland is centrals associated and if refs were as bad as people make them to be there were two refs in the game. Personally i think they did a good job, considering the atmosphere and intensity of the game the refs kept it under control

Should never have been allowed to do the whole series eg all the 18.1 boys finals, the refs should have been rotated thru the age groups each week with no double ups in the final series and we have enough refs to do this especially when finals are on as they all want to do Div 1 finals.

i believe they way the roster is who ever has performed gets the grand with no thought to the proberly strand relationships between teams and umpires

Yet another thread that has been transformed into a series of incoherent, whining, vitriolic rants about umpires, junior players and their families.

As for Boti's article, I think it was well suited to the journalistic excellence we have come to expect from The Advertiser.

I query your comment about "whoever has performed gets the grand" performed what(in past weeks?) and how well in whose eyes? just trying to understand the process.

I think switching the refs around in finals series would assist to alleviate comments about bias etc. Sometimes players think particular refs have it in for them ,so changing the refs each week would be beneficial to all particularly in finals. And who judges the performance, a peer ref judging your performance would be completely different than being critiqued by an independent person.

Anon she rank Number 1 at that under 18 nationals, Number 1 i repeat, which shows that she is national recognised. If a report wants to make comments about how a ref cant support her sister then let it be. But the referee's are allocated due to performance. Just as any player or coach to their ability, But i forgot its not allowed because referee's wear grey.

If this referee supposedly has an allegiance to Norwood, would somebody care to explain how it came to be that recently she reported a Norwood YL player, when his only 'crime' was to accidentally bleed on the court. Surely with the amount of bias that some of you clowns are claiming, she would have let that one slide?

Im not questioning her "credentials" I am asking about the process and making suggestions how things should be changed. I do not believe anyone should do the whole series in finals in the one grade, age group, sex. Do you understand what I am saying. The process should be changed. It shouldnt be the same Ref regardless of who it is.

I love the way people often look to the foul count to suggest referee bias. It's as is it's in the rules somewhere that the foul count is supposed to be even. Yeah, 27 fouls to 12, so what? How exactly is that relevant?

27-12 is only relevant when there 'appears' to be inconsistencies at either end of the court

#737 - if that is the case (which of course it isn't really, but for the sake of your little argument), then please explain Luke Smith's role in all of this? Why wouldn't he have called fouls? Or was he biased as well?

I'm no great supporter of the standard of refereeing in SA, but you are just being ridiculous.

The team that losers better have more fouls than the team that wins. Lets face it, you are losing, you need to take risks. You need to steal the ball and force turnovers. This normally equates to more fouls.

I dont see how you can blame an individual referee for the current standard.

The are being taught to 'manage' games and not call every thing they see. But rather to allow the game to 'flow'. Because they dont want to see a foul shooting fest. Unfortunately, what ends up happening is that teams are playing more aggressive to take advantage, and then the same number of fouls and therefore foulshots are occuring, just that they are more prononced. And unfortunately, it depends more on WHEN you foul in a game than IF you foul.

What this does to ALL refs is create a situation where they call inconsistantly in order to follow the instructions they are getting from above.

If you want to blame someone, blame the people directing the refs. Dont shoot the messanger.

If I was her I would be taking legal advice and getting my lawyer to speak to the advertiser and maybe this websites operators

The consistency comes down to the non-calls made to maintain the 'flow'of the game.

This creates a grey area, along with advantage/disadvantage. A ref doesnt want to call 3 fouls in the backcourt, 3 plays in a row because they are told they are not maintaining the flow of the game. But it does effect the efficiency of the offence and therefore is a disavdantage. Plus it builds mental pressure on the other team. Especially when they then get called for a foul which is less strong because there hasn't been a foul called in the last couple of minutes. (Brian Goorian was fantastic at having his team play more agreesive because refs didn't want to call every foul.)

Then after not making those calls, they make a call the other way.

It would work much easier if they decided what was a foul, what wasn't and called fouls until players and coaches were able to adjust.

#800

It's not her desire, it's a direction from above. You can't bag her for doing her job properly. Some people just look for any excuse to have a whinge.

So she favoured Sturt in that game, then favoured Norwood when they played against Sturt? How ridiculous.

#848 - yes, my IQ is that of a clock face, which clearly doesn't say much for you, given that I'm obviously the more intelligent one in this discussion. I'm guessing you haven't bothered to read the rest of this thread, and you just thought it'd be cool to chime in with your two cents worth. It's been explained already by someone else, so I won't bother again. Please read very carefully this time, and tell Mummy not to let you post again unless you are very clear about what's going on. In the meantime, go and have a nice hot cup of milk and go to bed.

Boti not coaching...travesty. Best coach we ever had.

change the title to >>>>> >>>>>>> Roast