I am interested to know why you believe this is a "huge step in the right direction for the league" this is not a loaded question, I just don't understand the thinking behind the comment?

Bellarine is in the Geelong region that already has Corio Bay SCM, Geelong D1M and Geelong SEABL so doubtful.

Colac is too close to Geelong IMO to enter a decent team.

Echuca basketball is not what it has been in the past, the majority of there better players go play at Bendigo or Melbourne, I'd be extremely surprised if they entered a BigV team within the next 5-8 years.

Warragul players are actually a part of Latrobe Energy who have teams in D1M and D1W. There is already a struggle for numbers in Gippsland to play, let alone trying to enter Warragul as well as Latrobe Energy.

It would appear that Shep is a step in the right direction and it would be great to get them back into the Champ Division one day as i still remember what great teams they had and the huge support.

Colac is right in the middle of Warrnambool & Geelong so there is plenty of playing options for players so i can't see why the league would want to add them.

Clubs that the Big V should work with to get into the league over time are:

Seymour & Wallan
(Both growing populations)


Wangaratta
Wodonga (As a feeder to Bandits - Similar to Geelong)

Expansion for the Big V in the country areas is good for the game of Basketball in Victoria however i think the biggest issue really is the number of clubs so close together in the South East Metro area of Melbourne.

Having so many of these smaller clubs close together dilutes the level of play ainthe D1/D2 which in tun then reduces the level of play at Champ as players who should still be playing champ getting lured down to D1/D2 clubs offering a bit of extra $$ as opposed to staying in champ and ensuring the depth at champ level is 6/7 teams deep and not 4 teams deep.

Your damned if you do and your damned if you don't.

For a start anon, stop crapping on about D2 being the same as Domestic. Its boring and unfounded. Much of domestic is complete rubbish. There are very few elite domestic competitions at all. D2 are teams that train generally twice per week, do a full preseason, run offences, have a defensive style etc. Domestic is turn up, jack it up and see what happens - different squad most week, run and gun rubbish.

Building country teams into BigV gives those programs a focus in their community - generates media coverage and the like. That is good for not just the club, but the association that underpins it.

BigV has broken down its strong top to bottom structure into weaker larger conferences in the last three years. This makes it harder for a Colac or similar team to come into the league.

Its not always about the overall quality. The former CEO of the league used to say its about being competitive within your group. Sure, Colac could not beat the seventh best rep side to come out of Knox, but competing against Warragul, Echuca, Traralgon etc might mean they are playing week in week out against sides of similar talent - at D3 or even D4 level.

Country basketball lacks what footy has - town vs town rivalries. So Colac plays Camperdown in footy, and those two towns care - but they don't get to care about it in basketball.

Its an example idiot.

Actually, its probably more of an allegory than an example, but you might need to look that up.

Spot on Country expansion is not about putting teams in for the sake of it it is about giving something back to those communities. Even if you had a low end D2 team go and play Colac it would be a tight contest that would give people in Colac something to read about in the papers on Monday and go and support a local team other than Footy. It is great for the community!

Additionally it is GREAT for the sport as it gets peopel playing, supporting and being involved with Basketball in the country. Look how many decent players have come from the Horsham program. For instance there are two playing in the NBL at the moment who have come through the Big V program there.

Will they ever be able to compete in SCM - probably never, SEABL would just be so far beyond them it would not be funny. Does that mean that we get rid of them???

Why not make D1 smaller, drop the lower end in to D2,and bring back D3 (droping the clubs at the lower end of D2 down) and allow clubs like Colac, Wallan etc... to participate

You are probably right. But think about it if we did do that (have a Div 3) would solve a heap of issues...

Even if you changed the name to SCM, SCM Reserve (currently D1), D1M (currently D2), D2M (new D3)

For some unkown reason the current BigV administration are obsessed with Conferences. They moved D2 to conferences 2 seasons ago and then D1 this year.

Then they spend all year talking about how mujch people are talking about how good the conference structure is, which they are not!

The conferences have also messed with what was one of the best features about BigV - home and away, best of three semis and finals.

HO, completely agree with you, but I also agree with the next post (sounds like i'm a fence sitter).

I guess if the higher divisions all have conferences it will inturn reduce the standard of the lower level a little and then allow the small associations like Colac, Wallan and Darebin to compete.

However the flip side is that it may in turn reduce the quality of the top Division (SCM).

cold hard facts are a division of 16 teams in two conferences will not be as competitive as a division of 10-12 teams in one.

The conferences can also vary greatly year to year, with conference A being weak one year and Conference B being weak in another year. This distorts results in the top end of each conference.

Its just poor competition planning.

With these people saying that these smaller associations shouldn't have a senior side because Div2 is similar to a good domestic competition are ridiculous.

Every association should have the right to have a senior team which their juniors can aspire to be a part of. I agree that they need to get rid of the conference system as it will mean less blowout games which were evident when looking at last seasons Div 1 results.

Who cares if teams like Wallan, Oakleigh, Bellarine and whoever want a Big V side... Allow them to do it so their junior players can aspire to play at that level.

Look at aussie rules as a good example. They have EFL Div 1,2,3 and 4. Then they have VAFA Premier, Premier B, etc etc. That gives clubs a senior side for their juniors to follow and for their juniors to strive to be a part of one day. At the same time giving people who want to play good senior basketball seriously with high level training a chance to do so.

Rant done.

Sorry #387704

Sure. I do the same analysis (of the ladder) and come up with this.

Three teams in Terril were simply below par. In an eight team conference, four teams had twelve wins or more, three teams managed just 6 wins. So three teams out of eight won just 25% of their games.

You quoted Altona, so will I. They beat four teams from the other conference and only two from their own.

All of the teams they beat from the other conference ended the season with better records than them, that does not necessarily means they upset good teams - it points to the Watson conference being weaker overall.

In Watson, three teams ended with 8-14 records, while four more had 12-10 records. That might look very competitive, but what it points to is one conference being weaker than the other top to bottom. This is strongly reinforced by the fact that the second placed team in the conference had only 12 wins, while second place in the other had 16. And the GF teams came from one conference as well (although I think this was am anomaly).

Of course 8 wins is only four from a finals berth. The league created 8 finals positions for 16 teams by creating two conferences!

Had this been a 12 team competition 8 wins would probably have been 5-7 wins off a finals berth.

A few months ago we had a good discussion on here, including some guys who played in the league, who basically acknowledged the league was different in 2012, but could not say it was definitively better. Some better talent sure, and good tough games, but the style changed etc.

I stand by my comments at the time that Geelong making the grand final, with the same coach, and losing I think 5 of their top 6 players, says a great deal about where D1 was at in 2012 compared to 2011.

I think btw in any one year that you can have a great set of teams even in a two conference structure. Its time that is the test and the numbers decree that a 16 team competition will not be as strong as a 12 team competition.