Rookie
Years ago

Under 21's

I had posted this earlier on the site but i think it went unnoticed due to my failure of posting re:domestic competition status.
Out of curiosity, what do people think about the current situation with the Uunder 21 Womens competition?
Do all think it is fair to have teams, as it was at the start of the season beat others by as much as 110 points (Eastern v Forestville 2), with players playing against ABL players, who have little experience or willingness ot play against others of that skill level?
As the Under 21 womens was developed to increase the numbers of young women playing in the competition it may also decrease the numbers with girls self-esteem and confidence level becoming non-existent. If some clubs enforce players who are currently in ABL squads and others do not, how is the development and participation of basketball for young women going to be beneficial?

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The Big Aristotle
Years ago

Agree with you Rookie. But the problem was that the clubs couldn't decide how to break up into div 1 and 2 early enough and BASA wasn't willing to say to member clubs that their teams are not up to div 1 standard. Only 3 teams nominated for div 2 so unless they played div 1 tey would not have had a real competiton.

Then some of the clubs, in their infinite wisdmo said that mid year we will be better off if we can have kids from the age group older. Of course it never eventuated and we were stuck with a 12 team comp. Some clubs are stuck on the idea that playing their players in div 1 is good for them. I agree with you that it will actually cause more players to leave the sport as they will lose confidence.

If you look at the weekly scores, the Woodville and South teams regularly loose by 30 - 40 points. But the worst thing is that the other teams don't even take it seriously and it make the comp look poor.

The answer is promotion/relegation.

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The Big Aristotle
Years ago

So would I,

1/ If you look at the U/21's this year. The bottom team not only hasn't won a game but has been beaten by 40 and 46 points in their last two games. (And I will assume that the opposition wasn't taking the game seriously) Do you think that this club would choose to put the team down into div 2.

2/ I hope that most clubs are able to retain more players over the coming years. However, how many clubs have ever had more than 1 U/20 womens team.

3/ I would like to add to your post that these clubs do have poorly prepared JCD becasue they are not a priority for the club and are given little or no help or direction from the club itself. But they do seem to be able to go out a buy senior players.

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what the
Years ago

the girls in the Div 2 group should go in Div 4 or 5 women - that is more their standard.

There are more teams in the senior Div 4 or 5 group - rather than 4 teams in u21 div 2 - pretty boring over a 22 round season with 4 teams.

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Anonymous
Years ago

I am DREADING going up to play u/21's next season... so much so that I don't think I want to play basketball next year. If I do, I will probably move clubs otherwise I'll be playing with an even bigger bunch of bad players and we'll be playing against current ABL players with so much more skill than us..
It DOES make you lose confidence and I wish the idea was never introduced. It's great for the stronger clubs but for the weaker ones, it's a disaster!

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Anonymous
Years ago

why was it changed to this?

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the appreciator
Years ago

play div 4 or 5 seniors - anon.

the skill level is about div 3 - 4 juniors level.

Div 3 seniors vary from ABL discards to wanna bees

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Anonymous
Years ago

I play division 1 at the moment and I want to play ABL next season, not div 4 or 5 seniors.. But problem is, our club has a policy that if you're young enough to play juniors, you have to or you cant play ABL.

So it looks like me and many other players WILL have to play in this ridiculous u/21's league, no matter how much we don't want to. The other option is moving to a stronger club.

Can't someone do something about it and change it to how it used to be?

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Anonymous
Years ago

is it just girls or are the boys going to have a under 21's as well???????????/

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Paul Arnott
Years ago

The nomination form from BASA suggests that the men's comp will again be Under 20s, not Under 21s. What makes you think it's also changing to Under 21s?

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Hoop Addict
Years ago

I think the U21s has been a partially failed experiment. They timed the introduction wrongly, and left a lot of people wondering 'can I actually play?'.

As far as wide margins go - there is generally a fair variation in skill level of the top teams and bottom teams of any girls age group. U21s just exaggerates the problem. Realistically, they will always struggle to get the 16 teams in U21 chicks to have a proper div 1 & 2 comp. I say bite the bullet & tell them (if they have 12 teams as an example) that 6 play 1s, and 6 play 2s. Gives everyone a fair chance and hopefully would eliminate the huge margins. The problem is telling teams they can't field a div 1 side.

Would also be unfortunate for the 1 team in each grade who misses finals!

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Hoops

Under 21's

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