Still got a personal problem with BV HP?

It's hard to argue with the results, with Vic winning...

U20: Gold in the Men and Women

U18: Gold and Bronze in the Men and Bronze in the Women

U16: Gold in the Boys and Silver in the Girls

The U16 Vic Metro boys were utterly dominant at the recent U16 national champs, however the top 3 Metro-eligible scorers on the current U16 VC ladder were not in that team. I don't think they are focused on scorers no matter what, at least not in the boys.

I've heard that AFL have their recruitment issues. I understand 2 players per club can be nominated for their version of rep tryouts. Inevitably at least one of the two players is a coach's or manager's son. Doesn't seem as equal a playing field as basketball in the state.

Basketball is behind AFL largely due to funding by state and national governments. It allows the AFL and AFL clubs to pay scouts for their time and most are reimbursed well.

Most of government funding is pushed into new stadiums due to the huge amount of kids wanting to play basketball.

From my time at BV HP, a while ago now, coaches were volunteers and I believe this would still be in place.

I'm not sure what you want from these people, everyone is time poor, they have their own full time jobs, families etc.

This leaves the HP manager to be across a lot and most are pretty good at communicating with local club JDOs to see who has improved or gone backwards.

To me, this brings up the CoE topic again. This money is better divided up between the states so they can all hire extra HP staff and in turn, watch more junior games. It has been long rumoured that each athlete costs up to $100k per year to be at CoE? That’s a lot of wasted money for approximately 15-20 athletes per year, most of which fall away after their junior basketball career is finished.

In NSW they have volunteer Network Coaches who do most of the working with the Athletes each week and some of these have no real idea and therefore the Athletes do not really get better and the parents have had to pay good money to have their child involved.

The High Performance Manager only visits some Associations once a month and visits other more regular because of which Association it is.

Some of the better athletes do not do the HPP or SPP Program and then get told if you do not do the program you will not get selected in a State Team.Cost is also a factor why some athletes cannot do it.

While I think the HP coaches do a good job with limited resources, and talent-wise there is not much to split between them and the AIS coaches, I'm not sure if adding more HP coaches would be better for developing truly elite talent than putting them in a 24x7 basketball and strength & conditioning environment at the AIS.

Maybe the problem lies more with talent identification to feed the CoE. They seem to mainly pick tall athletic-types late. I wonder if athletic testing combined with bone age studies to predict future height would work better, at least in terms of picking tall athletes earlier to develop their skills for a longer period.

I understand that China does bone age studies for their junior athletes across many sports at an early age. I am sure it is useful data for them.

I wonder if you would pick a kid like Johnny Furohy earlier if you knew he was going to get to 6’8/6’9 whilst being a super athlete with developing skills.

DeepWombat - very difficult to draw a line between those results and the HP programme. Sheer weight of numbers supports those outcomes - anything less would be outrageously bad. That is a very immature way to value a programme and I fear there is a general laziness within the Vic community which means we are not actually maximising our capabilities. I dare you to go and watch a SDP training at 6.30am at a local court near you and convince me that's where athletes are being developed. Nonsense. I have seen school programmes more effective. The sessions are really basic and don’t lead anywhere.

Basketball needs to take an approach similar and better than the AFL. We have seen this in the boys space, but I gotta tell you there is no way we are going to be successful in the girls space globally within a decade as the AFLW expands. We are not winning gold, silver or bronze in 2032 the way we are going. Look out sleepy joe.

I am sick to the back teeth of coaches within the system, including at rep level, that fill teams to support their own positions and also to support their own personal training and careers. It promotes choices for now, not the future.

Tell me I am wrong. I would like to be.

can't compare AFL to basketball - more paid workers v majority of volunteers / amatuers

Yep, but how much money is put into basketball and how is it spent? You can throw your hands up and say football has more money etc, or accept the reality. And actually, most AFL scouts don't really get paid - they just love their sport and want to contribute to their team. Ultimately, it’s not about money - it’s about process and governance. If you have people doing it for money, they are doing it most definitely for the wrong reason. M

@Manders

Speaking of effective school programs, I saw some of the Champions Cup Elite 8 this week.

There are some great coaches working in schools and some great quality match ups this week. Looking forward to finals day.