Mate everyone almost at full strengh!

Wav - Dillon only to come back
Corio - Williams due any day
Eltham - No Announcements (few whispers thou)
Ringwood - Corletto back or another import?

Very interesting seeing Chris Anstey suiting up for Camberwell in Division 1 Men... He would go pretty well in Championship Men I think.

As would Jermaine Williams, Jay Allen, Jordan Canovan, Kris Clark (Mildura's new import), Cameron Mitchell, Russel Permenter and Zac Natoli.

That's just to name a few to be honest.

Bulleen in SCM look to be pretty average to be honest, I still think Waverley would have to be favourites to win it this year.

Personally, I don't get the whole "import in Div I" thing.

What do these Clubs tell an import to get them to come over here to play in a Div I team ?

And I don't really see the point - why be able to bang in 40-50 points a game but you have to carry the whole team ?

Surely any import worth their salt would be better off in Champ where at least they are lifting overall standard of the competition ?

Oh, that's three questions in a row - nuff already.

Is this a boy thing ? No comments on Champ women ?

I think overall the standard of Champ women looks a bit average this year.

Eltham sorta pulled a fast one last season with Grima, Froggy and Carr ... but a one off, won't happen again.

Barely even a few fringe players from WNBL coming back to play Big V in 2012 - all off in SEABL or getting ready for the Olympics.

The teams that are there will still go hard at it ... but a fair step down from SEABL.

So what does this mean for UPL ... or whatever it will be called ... whenever it will happen ...

Will that help or hinder competition development with Big V ?

Anyone have an idea of the salaries of the likes of Corletto and Dillon in this league?

We talking big money or small?

Williams arrives on April 9th, will suit up for the next game against Diamond Valley.

I was at a div2 game on the weekend. The home team had an import and was carrying on like a fool. One of the opposition players questioned if he was that good why isnt he playing Champ or SEABL.. all this import had in his comeback book was "Check my Resume" "Check my Resume" This player who was questioning him was a far far better player than the import, As ws most of the opposition team!
Made me laugh abit!

Interesting.

(Not sure Cameron Mitchell is a SEABl quality starting centre. As some others have said dominating D1 is very different to stepping up to championship or again to SEABL - he competes against no one at BigV D1)

The comments by #357098 make a lot of sense. This league has grown too rapidly, it appears to be focused only on growth and whereas 7 years ago it was growing at both ends (teams from SEABL joining at the top end and teams coming in from the bottom end as well) it's growth now seems like a jigsaw.

My understanding is that the league now basically lets clubs play in any sort of venue, and the example of Corio's "admission" has been well discussed. On the weekend they played six players, against a veritable Dads Army side from Hume City - where is the growth coming from those sort of games? How are these teams generally good for the sport?

If you look at the Div's the gap between SCM & D1 is huge.....it is not only the imports but the local content that is the key.

1 or 2 players from D1 could step up and play at the next level but the D1 teams don’t have the depth to compete with SCM teams so hence promotion/relegation wouldn’t work.

People sometimes forget that a number of the so called "stars" of D1/D2 are still playing in those divisions for a reason (queue the loyalty argument!) but it isn’t loyalty, often it’s due to key parts of the individual’s game.

Perfect Example raised earlier is Jay Allen - this guy can flat our shoot but in SCM he has to play the 2 spot and that’s were he would be exposed at the defensive end so he’d be a 5-7 min bench player only not a “star” (No offence to Jay as I rate his game at the D1 level)

For Cam Mitchell to be able to be a go to import in SEABL he needs to develop more of a post game, you can't just out jump everyone in SEABL.

SCM this year is more spread talent wise however the overall level with Trig/Greer/Corletto is lower as there is less NBL level talent.

Top four will still look very similar to last year.

Wav
Ringwood
Eltham
DV/Sherbrooke

Are all imports in the lower divisions of Big V on sporting visas?

I know Morningtons import got sent home a few years ago because he wasnt on the right visa.

Some are on working visas while there are a couple that are on a sports visa.Some D1 imports this season are easily as good as the Champ men imports

If your not on a sports visa, how are they being paid???

The club sponsors them , they work within the club doing coaching , school programs etc.

No wonder immigration take a special interest in these cases.They should just clean it up once and for all.Sports Visas or nothing.

Anon 357128

I should clarify, my dad's Army comment was about Hume City, not Corio.

I know Corio have one serious veteran in Hutchinson but don't think the rest of their roster is old.

What worries me is their depth - running six players at Championship level just reinforces the view here earlier that this group did not have the local talent to be put where they were - knowing that Hutchinson and Reardon for example had to be brought across from Geelong and they've needed to get an import as well.

If those kids cannot be played in a game without an import present, they are not good enough, and there is even less chance they will play when the import arrives.

HO,

Corio Bay are missing both Eric Williams and Luke Osborn. Add both of them and it becomes an 8 man rotation excluding the three rookies.

Also, Weeks 1 and 2 saw 9 players get court time, it was only this week that the rotation was shortened.

Annon #104, where are we at the moment? 1-2 with one of those losses by 4 with less than a full squad and sitting with the same record as Waverly.

JV Coach, I think you misunderstand.

The question all along has been about CB's depth, and why the league admitted (encouraged?) them straight into Championship when they appeared to have little local talent to sustain that.

On Saturday night, covering depth, as you have indicated, with local talent, was clearly not an option. They had six of their 8, from what you have said, and only played those six.

CB have recruited heavily it appears, including open advertisements here, to get this team on the floor.

This is about the league btw, not the team. While the league cannot control Hume City's bizarre recruiting strategy, it does control whether a new team enters the league based on its own strength.

It appears the league did not do its homework here and that it would have been better for Corio if they had entered them in Div 1 or 2, not put the pressure on them to recruit, and let them work their way up to the level they are now playing at.

There is a saying in Basketball that if you want to be a good coach, get a good team. That can be said for this example, if you want to play at championship then get a team to play there - it does not meant it is good decision making to allow/encourage that.

Dillon is resting an injured ankle and has been on the Waverley bench so far this season and ready to play any game. Sturt is playing for Ringwood, and possibly another import to replace Corletto. If the whispers out of Eltham are true then they will again be very strong.

Define recruiting? Of the 11 on the list, the three rookies are a current Stingrays junior, a former Stingrays junior and one who didn't play rep ball as a kid but played in our CBL (Country Basketball League). All three play domestic for our association every week.

Of the 8, I'll leave out Williams as he's an import. Of the rest, Stefan is a former junior and played three years of CBL as well as domestic. Reardon, Osborn, Trevaskis and Walker all played in our CBL teams in 09/10 and 10/11. Hutchinson (who is no veteran, still a young cat) played in the 10/11 and 11/12 CBL teams. All five have played domestic with us since 05. The only new one to our association is Greg Smith. So of an 10 man roster + import, only one has never played for our association in a representative team before this season. That'd have to be one of the highest percentages in the league.

I'm going to leave whether we should be in Championship or not as that was a league decision (we applied for Div 1).

Also, if we are going to be entirely junior based, we would never get a team up. We came into existence in 2004/05 so the oldest kid to start with our program is 20 (2 of the ones above are from that team). How can you keep kids without having a team to go into?

Who Does Gary Ablett play footy for? Gold??
Jeremy Lin? New?
Bogut? Golden?

It's Corio-BAY not Corio... not too hard for you experts is it?

JV,

I don't know that much about all the players mentioned, but by your own admission, you have one, count that, one, former Corio junior in your top eight players.

If Greg Smith is the same guy that used to play for Hume City then he would be older than Hutchinson, who is not a rookie. So you have at least 2 +35 guys running around.

You can't claim mature age guys joining your SUMMER CBL team as part of your program, not when, as Reardon and Hutchinson were, they were playing their serious winter ball at the same time elsewhere, and have been basically all their careers.

Claiming that about CBL would be like Warrandyte saying their import is now their player because he plays MMBL with them! (as has been reported in another thread here).

So you have recruited Hutchinson, Reardon, Williams and Smith to play Championship. If you were in D2 you would not have had to get these guys .... yes? And you have three other guys who have never been a part of your junior program either from what you have said.

Sorry mate, playing in your domestic comp counts for nothing. Matthew Snowball has played in Kilsyth's domestic comp for ages - he is a Ringwood player through and through. People don't play for you in senior domestic, they play "in" your domestic comp cause they choose to have a shoot around with their mates. I know nothing about your domestic comp, but if its like all those other comps in Victoria, it has no bearing on your rep program. Lots of SEABL and BigV players in Melbourne play domestic elsewhere.

But back to the point. Last weekend, you fielded six players in a game, simply and solely because the juniors on the end of your bench could not be trusted to keep you in what looks like it was a tight game against Hume City. Williams comes in, and Osborne (he does not appear to have played a game this year), and those "juniors" of yours are even further down the bench and less likely to play.

Why would your club do that? Why not take a path where you can reward the kids coming out of your junior program by actually playing them (D2) and augment them with some older guys (maybe this trevaskis and walker perhaps) and then build up to championship level over a minimum of 3 seasons?

HO- Your obviously not aware on what CBL is are you? It's not a standard domestic comp, and i think JV coach means that they represented Corio Bay in the CBL (which is a league) and have done so for a number of years in the offseason, from what i gather. From what i saw of Corio Bay against Sherbrooke, that young PG (isn't he 18?) of theirs, Stefan Osborne, looks like he will be the real deal, the uniforms are slick, they look professional as a club, been a good start for them, does anyone know what their crowds have been like?

HO,

As I noted before, any player who began with the club in day 1 in 2004 would be at oldest 20. I'm not that familiar with the Div 1/2 (so hopefully someone more knowledgable can give me the correct answers), but how many teams would have more than, say, 75% of its players 20 or younger. That's a big ask of players that young. We would have had to get older guys to ensure the team wasn't belted. Guess what? Anyone we would have got would not have played with us before, the only difference is that we wouldn't be playing Champ Men.

Also, you say we only have one former junior in our top 8. How many of the other champ men's have more than 1 player under the age of 20 in their top 8 players?

In terms of the older players, I never said (or intended to imply) they were our players, in the sense that we had developed them from juniors. What I meant was that they have been involved on a representative level in some form BEFORE coming into Big V, versus signing on simply because we had a Big V team. Again, to some it might not much, but only 2 out of 11 players have had no affiliation to our club before taking the floor for a Big V game.

Under Big V rules, we cannot have a youth league team until we have a team in a higher division. It is our plan to have a youth league team in 2013 and a youth-focused CBL as well. Plenty of pathways for our juniors to develop.

And yes, Smithy is the same Greg Smith from Hume.

Big props to Corio Bay. Having played against Corio Bay over the last 2 seasons in the CBL they have a very good group of youth coming through who could definitely play at a higher level. They are confident young kids and have some good coach's and some experienced players that have shown a real committment to the club.
I think they are doing a great job and have a strong future.

All the best to Corio Bay this season

Thought this was a BIG V thread not Corio Bay only. Don't concern yourselves to much with early results guys, championships last time I checked aren't won in March/April. Not saying CB will win it but good luck to the up and about Ray Club. As a player who has played both DIV1 and Champ Men the full squad would have crushed DIV2 and been heavy favourites in Div 1.

Reardon is a star as proven by his demolition job on Warrnambool in the championship last year, young Stef Osborne is a pure scorer and huge talent and Eric is a proven SEABL champ. When all hands on deck a very very good squad.

Prediction is will compete for potential final play off spot.

Do you think any other country teams could compeate in Championship one day, ie Horsham , Mildura, Southern Penn, Wodonga.

If Horsham could put a team together of current SEABL/Big V players that are originally from Horsham they'd be pretty handy!

Tim Pickett, Shane Macdonald, Liam Norton, Aaron Bruce, Shaun Bruce, Mitch Creek

Good Call. They would be good

There's an article in the BigV overtime magazine which talks about the amount of Horsham's past junior players moving up to bigger things, leaving them down in Div2, they could have a very good Champ Men's team if they all stayed.

Mildura and Horsham yes.Southern Pen maybe in 5 years once they build there program and learn to recruit some good imports.

Div 1 Players - James Guljas, Tim Gainey, Jordan Canovan, Axel Dench, Marcus Timmons, Chris Anstey, Gerard Leonard, Sam Burch

Div 1 Imports - John Morris, Jermaine Williams, Kris Clark, Cameron Mitchell, Russell Parmeter

If you are saying none of these guys can't play championship or seabl level you obviously don't play basketball and watch from the side.

A couple of Mildura players 1. Glen Barlow played with Melbourne Tigers and West Sydney in the NBL and 2. Anthony Labke played at the AIS with Andrew Bogart so there is a few out there also Warrnambol could play championship with a couple of small changes.

If i'm not mistaken Gainey, Timmons, Leonard, Williams, Morris, Burch, Dench, Canovan, all played at the championship level or seabl and averaged very good numbers.

Only thing that separates levels like Seabl and Championship is that the bench is more deep and polished.

Corio Bay will struggle unless they can develop their bench, the coaching staff are more than capable of doing that but they need to do it quick.

Other than that they have a strong core unit and some exciting young talent, they should do fine.

I had the pleasure of watching the practice match between CB and Waverly and both teams had one or two important players missing, and it was a drawn game decided on the buzzer.

Good luck to all teams though

What were the results from tonights games? Any standout performances? Did Tigers improve with Yusuuf back???

Wow. Stingrays surprise a few there. They added how many others last night. Good work by the new guys. I wonder if Williams will improve on those huge numbers or just maintain. Yusuf didn't help too much I saw. It's only early though. Tigers are coming.....

With the rumours surrounding Dillon and Trigger, will this affect their Big V commitments. We've seen Trigger suit up with Eltham, when (if at all) will Dillon suit up for Waverly?

Trigger stating in melb all off season...dillon to suit once foot clears up.

Eltham's import should be cleared next week

I wonder if the perception that Championship BigV is weak or that Victorian basketball overall is weak at this level is true?

No one has mentioned the fact that many Victorian kids (other states too) at the elite level may go on to college in the US or other leagues overseas, only to come back and maybe even avoid this level if they are good enough and end up in SEABL or NBL...

More and more kids playing a sport that needs more and more teams and associations doing what CB is doing I would have thought.

Why are we sitting on our hands, being critical of those trying to develop a program (no matter where it is) while many of our best kids drop off and go to footy or other sports seen as offering them better opportunities.

Give it a few more years, then observe, as the 15 - 18 year olds of today come back with college level experience to set the Bigv alight...

Hopefully!

Been told Elthams import not your typical import but a guy who just happens to be holidaying Australia who can play a bit.

After 6 rounds i still think it'll finish as per below after finals:

Waverley (To much talent to loose! & proven performers)
Ringwood (Imports + Sturt - They'll come good!)
The rest: Fighting for finals spots
DV (Good crew and solid bigs)
Eltham (Surprise team plus add Tragardh)
Corio Bay (Williams & Reardon could make finals)
Sherbrooke (If they can get on a roll like last year are tough)
Hume (Haven't played the better teams yet we'll know in about 4 weeks were they stand)
Melbourne (Making up the numbers)

I think it will start to take more shape in the next 3-4 rounds.

Top 4-
Ringwood
Waverley
Eltham
Corio Bay

Looks like DV have gone off the boil and Hume might just not quiet have the depth to hang around all year.

Great that Big V have got a close season after last few years having only 2 strong team a chance at winning it.

Stingrays now in 3rd position, where are all the haters now?

Sting rays playing good ball at the moment, however don't crow to early.

Reardon/Williams Combination are close to the best 3/4 combo in the league! However one of those two misses and or goes down and its season over.

That said I think they'll finish 4th and face Eltham or Ringwood in the finals.

Best of luck for the rest of the year.

Tiger Watcher, not crowing about anything (haven't won anything), just giving a shout out to the people who believe we shouldn't have been allowed in Championship.

It is going to be one hell of second half of the season. It is extremely tight from top to bottom, with upsets occurring every week. Bit of a mirror image to the AFL results at the moment.

Prediction for the Top 4 in no particular order:
Corio Bay
Eltham
Waverley
Ringwood

Time will tell though.