im not surprised with that result. sturt do hav a very strong team in 14 boys!!!!

maybe Liam could give them a run for u20s !

well done boys ! - you are a good outfit

results were very close between the top 3 teams - only a few paoints between 1st and 3rd

Congratulations Paul, Scott, Jarrod, Michael and all the team for a fantastic result. The manner in which you have built and developed this team has been first class and a tribute to the club.

To the players, well done on your terrific performance. Your comraderie, work ethic and determination were outstanding and a credit to yourselves and your families.

I agree Liam - these boys could have gone top - in fact they should focus towards that at future classics.

To those that are going to u16s - put your hands up and be counted for SA metro selection in 2005 or 2006

(Warning: following post contains gratuitous naming of junior basketballers - but they are interstate players and thus unlikely to be known by too many here.)

Did anyone else notice in the Top 10 Stats section for the boys that there were not one but two lads by the name of Sengstock (Kurt and Connor) running around for the Brisbane Metro team?

Best name clearly went to the young fellow called Jimbo McAnulty from Newcastle who finished Top 10 in scoring.

Great job Jimbo!

On a serious note the Tournament was up there with N.C.T.'s 1999 Nationals as one of the best run I have been to, not that I've been to that many.

Also as a referee I sure didn't mind the apartments we were made to stay in. I'm sure Durant and Co from 18's would be very jealous at how well we got looked after.

As for results Sturt and West (who knocked off the 4th placed Geelong during the rounds) performed very well. Westies lack of depth in the frontcourt probably their downfall.

As for pro/reg I think it my have helped Sturt as far as mental toughness. From my point of view the two games they lost they did so because of mental errors. Most referees considered Sturt the most talented/deep team there, unfortunately you just can't make the mistakes they did against Nunawading and Sandringham.


There you go JC hope thats good enough for ya!

Daniel, you are right on all counts. Both narrow losses to Nuna and Sandy occurred because of mental mistakes in the 4th quarter after coming back from large deficits. Both games were our 2nd tough game in a day after must wins against Newcastle and Bankstown, when our oppoonents had either a bye or a gimme in the morning. Tougher week in, week out competition could have meant that we were better prepared to overcome the very good opposition in those situations. Having said that we showed great mental toughness to come from behind twice in crucial games, and also beat a high quality Bankstown team.

I'm a little confused as to why a more competitive local comp would have helped overcome the mental mistakes in the 4th quarter. The pressure on the team to recover from the poor starts given the expectations of the team suggests a high degree of mental toughness. Everyone makes mental mistakes in every sport. Look at the AFL, NBL etc. Players in these comps make dumb decisions but to suggest they would not have occurred if these comps were stronger is incorrect. To draw a long bow, if your assertions were correct, the lower skilled teams should make less mental errors as they have, relative to the top teams, stronger competition day in day out. Obviously this is not so.

SAW,

Having read you previous posts on the pro/rel issues it is easy to see the you don't understand the issues that have here effected this group and other like groups in the past and will continue to do so in the future.

There is a big difference between being able to play from behind and to being able to understand how to deal with the pressure of the final 2-3 minutes of a tight game. This group would not have made top 4 without a large amount of mental toughness, but they did not have games throughout the year where they were challenged in the last quarter outside of the classics.

What we are saying regarding pro/rel is that if it had been implemented 2 or 3 years ago then all clubs would have changed their priorities as to their efforts for junior development, because if they choose not too then they might not have a team in the championship grade. This means that somebody would have done a better job over the past couple of year to produce a team which might actually challenge and hopefully beat this group during the year. Plus instead of playing every other week and winning by more than 50 points where mistakes are OK because a missed shot only means another rebound. They would have played West, Forretville, Norwood and perhaps the Sturt 2nd team who all made them work harder for a majority of the game. This also means that West and Sturt would have had twice as many games against each other helping both teams at the National Championships.

Does that make it a little clearer.

The Big Aristotle,

Thank you for taking the time out to clarify some points to me. Just as you may be passionate about this matter I am passionate about simply changing something without seriously questionning the basic assumptions on which that proposed change is based.

Based upon the normal winter season against the three teams you mentioned Sturt had an average winning margin in excess of 40 and a % in excess of 200. Given the capabilities of those teams at this time In my opinion even if Sturt played those teams day in day out there would not be the continual pressure upon them that would have made the difference at the classics. This group of players could still make mistakes and still win, probably still fairly easy.

Your comment that if pro/rel was implemented 2-3 years ago all teams would have got better thereby pushing harder needs some further investigation.

Apart from the three other teams you mentioned there are several other proud and strong clubs (overall) in SA. To suggest that these clubs rest on their laurels and not develop juniors simply because they have guaranteed access to Div 1 is, in my opinion, a slur on the club, their officials and coaches. They may have poor squads from time to time in certain age groups but to suggest they forget about them is unfounded. South have worked hard on improving their coaching panel while I would suggest North wouldn't be a club to not attempt to improve their juniors irrespective of the structure of the competition.

I agree that some clubs are doing it better at the moment but these clubs put that structure in place knowing they were guaranteed a Div 1 team. By your assertions they could simply have left things drift along and whatever happened, happened.

Sorry, your points are certainly clearer, but in my opinion, by themselves, certainly not compelling enough to make a change.

Let's move this conversation to the promotion/relegation thread.

Well put SAW,

My comments are not meant to be a slur on clubs who are curretnly less successful, because I understand that there are other factors involved in performance and naturally cycling fluctuations will occur from period to period. What I am saying is that IMO those said cycles occur more from the efforts of the club. Currently not 1 club, mine included could say that their senior progeram generates all of their own income, even from sponsorship. It is much easier for a club to go out and buy senior player than it is to invest in junior development. We all complain about the cost of basketball. Well right now our junior are paying for our senior programs, limiting the number of players teams and more specifically the position of Full Time coaching director each and every club should employ.

Dean Kinsman came to North and in a full time position took them from 7th in the previous State Championships to top in a coulpe of years, and they are still living off his hard work. Looking at Forestville right now Dean and Paul Arnott have them in a postition to contest for State Champions Club soon and for a number of years after being fairly low a couple of years ago.

If their was pro/rel put in place what would be the reaction form your club? Would they employ a full time JDO or JCD? All clubs would then become more accountable in needing to develop their juniors and more importantly, in doing school clinic, aussie hoops clinics and competition to find new players for the club. Because I am 100% sure that if you look at those clubs who are being succesful, they are already doing these things. But other clubs IMO seem to just want to blame outside influences for their current positions.

Well put Big Aristotle.

Although I'm not convinced that promotion/relegation will be the best decision for SA junior basketball long term, surely there can be no argument that the current structure is not working. Large margins in many divisions have a detrimental effect on both the winners and the losers, and clearly something needs to be done.

The Big Aristotle's comments should not be taken as a personal attack on individual people. All junior coaches are volunteers, and most coaching directors are effectively volunteers. No-one can deny the value of the time that these people put into their clubs. The problem is that most (any?) clubs don't realise how important these people are, and don't provide them with them the resources (time/training/money) to do a good enough job. If your club devotes more resources to your senior players/coaches than your junior coaching directors (as most do), then they are not shouldering their fair share of our collective responsibility of improving the standard of our junior programs (which in turn will improve the standard of our senior programs).

Sturt showed leadership in this area by employing Paul Mesecke 4 years ago, and have reaped the rewards. Other clubs should consider doing the same.

A couple of observations which may or not may mean anything.

How important is size and the different rate of growth of children, particularly the younger grades. If you run a line through the percentages of the Div 1 teams it seems that there is less variation between %'s in the ladders at the older levels when compared to the lower grades.

Is this in part to do with juniors "catching up" with their growth over time. I see some of the better lower age junior teams and am amazed at the overall size of some of these teams. While they are also skillful because of their physical size and strength the gap is amplified. I have seen others in lower teams that appear just as skillful but lack the strength and size to compete.

Are we missing out on attracting better junior athletes to basketball because they or their parents (who may never have played basketball) perceive it to be a big persons sport and because their child is a "late" developer from a physical viewpoint is moved into other sports where size is not such an issue.

Does our age groupings also cause a problem at the lower levels. Should we be looking at minimising variations by instead of having a lot of divisions at say U10-U14 you have less divisions but have age groupings stepping up by 1 year increments like they do in junior footy?

Just an observation; have others had similar thoughts?

By the way I think using Sturt U14B1 as an example for this discussion is prbably not reflective of the norm. They obviously are an exceptional team; lets not forget they won the bronze medal by 23 points over the fourth best team in Australia. In this case I don't know how many ways you can shuffle the deck chairs in SA to give that team a good run week in week out.

SAW,

It seems like you have avoided the issues that I have just put forth.

What would your clubs reaction be to pro/rel? Have they considered the worth of a full time JDO/JCD? Or are they just interested in buying senior players?

IMO without pro/rel clubs have no incentive to develop their own players because they can just go out and recruit senior teams. Plus the true benefit would come in the long term development of players from tight week in week out competition. And as you have pointed out above this would mean that all players (including those who are not yet physically mature) will play against equl opposition, thus showing which coaches/clubs do a better job of development as over time their teams would improve from good coaching.

The Bid Aristotle,

Perhaps you can tell me which clubs you believe give up on juniors because there is no pro/rel and simply buy a senior team.

You have intimated in your post that if you are against pro/rel or don't have a full time JDO/JCD then you must simply go out and buy a senior team.I would be amazed if this is the norm. How do these clubs fund the "buying of a senior team" if they don't have a strong and viable junior system.

At the moment we don't have Pro/Rel and there are many clubs where juniors transition into seniors successfully. Sorry I can't accept this argument.

IMO a senior team needs to more than 80% juniors for it to be considered a club team. AS well as making the finals for them to say that they are doing a good job of development. How many teams in the finals can you say 10 out of their 12 have played juniors for their club? I think that you will find that there might be 3 out of 10. The rest have bought in 3 or more players from either interstate or other clubs.

SAW,

To answer the question "Which clubs give up on juniors", the answer is "all of them" (Sturt and Forestville included). All clubs appoint people to run their junior program, but give them little or no resources (training/mentoring/money/time/people). These people in turn recruit and appoint up to 50 coaches, and provide them with little or no resources (training/mentoring/money/time). The consequences are obvious.

Every club's senior program is supported by its junior program. Whether the money that is used to pay senior players comes from junior fees, ABA stadium entrance fees, canteen, bar, fundraising, or whatever, the resources (be it money or effort) can generally be traced back to the club's junior program.

A good point I heard recently: Even if you ignore the moral argument, and look at a basketball club from a purely financial perspective, why would you pay someone when the service they offer doesn't make a profit?

Having said that, if people honestly believe that the existing state of the junior competition is satisfactory, then nothing will convince them that change is necessary.

(Off my soap box now!)

Obviously there are many issues facing our Junior System and in my opinion it goes back to two main causes:

1. Lack of resources
2. Inability to attract/retain good juniors into the system.

Each of these we can discuss ad nauseam.

I am neither pro nor anti pro/rel. I just see this as one possibility in improving the quality of the competition. It does not address the two issues above.

I would also like to throw out there whether with our talent base in SA, and the available resources in SA, can we support a junior system of 10 clubs (plus a few others). Would the level of competition be better, and resources better spread if there were, say 8 clubs plus an expansion of domestic competitions to help reduce the gap between district and social basket ball and to entice youngsters to the game in a less formal and expensive manner?

Perhaps BASA should consider commissioning a report on the ideal way forward. This should be done in conjunction with the clubs but I believe the best, unbiaised report would be achieved by an experienced sports administrator, probably not even heavily involved with basketball.

Until we take the emotive club issues out of any changes to the structure of basketball nothing will happen.

That's it for me on this subject.

SAW,

I agree. I too am neither for nor against pro/rel. It certainly would benefit from more discussion, with input from BASA and the clubs, and this forum clearly isn't the best medium for reaching a conclusion on the matter.

I also agree that lack of resources is a major issue facing junior basketball, and that this issue is somewhat distinct from the promotion/relegation debate.

Big A can you name the three teams that had 10 ten out of 12 juniors from their club

SAW what u are suggesting would be ideal in a perfect world. This would cost a significant amount. It would be like any kind of organisational audit / enquiry. You have to survey all the stakeholders to get an understanding of the current issues, then run a think tank on ways to improve it, then present a report to the stakeholders, then get those stakeholders (there are many and they are diversified) to agree. That administrator from outside of basketball would have to have the respect, experience etc. and pretty much work fulltime for a year.

I think Sturt seem to think the best way is to get the clubs to agree to get your top coaches from the basketball fraternity to resolve the issues on the premise that if this forum goes ahead, all the clubs agree to agree with the outcome of this forum. There is probably some kind of undocumented hirearchy in the coaching system and you have the leaders / more dominant that have been around the longest and are most respected would basically be able to impart their ideas leading to "group think". This would not be good and surely no club is going to pass off this kind of decision making responsibility.

All of a sudden you have every man and his dog adopting the ideas of one or two people. THis would not be good.

I think, get the top coaches and administrators to draw up a proposal representative of their clubs views and then get the presidents to vote off on the final outcome.

No doubt pro / rel is good but its just not feasible in its current format.

and now for something completely different...as in not pro /rel...well done sturt under 14 boys!

Well said Schmee. Great work boys!

Incognito,

I think that you have only taken part of the Sturt porposal and put it out into the forum.

My understanding was that the idea is that ALL clubs would have input into not only the selection of a group of 3 Basketball specialist, but also 3 Admin specialist nominated by each club. Plus Colin Thompson on behalf of BASA, Neil Gliddon as State coaching director, and the referee person. But that then each club would be able to submit their concerns to the group and any proposals for the group to then work over and bring back a finished product to the Boards.

Thanks for clarifying Big.

What you say there was not my understanding.

If thats the case it looks good.

So why doesnt this go ahead? Is there anything / anyone stopping the process? or is it just a case of timing?

Go and see the pro/rel line.

My thinking is that it will not go ahead because all the clubs cannot agree on anything. Just on principle, because they fear each other getting stronger. The only thing that they seem to have agreed on in the last 5 years is to restict the transfer of senior players which will only erode the level of competition through players choosing not to play rather than being able to play where they are happy.

Which clubs do have a full-time paid Junior Development officer?

None

And why is that? Clubs don't have the funds available for such appointments. 10 full time JDO's may cost 400k + when you add up all costs. This is not far short of what the salary cap is for NBL teams. This was reduced to ensure these clubs remained viable. If an NBL team can't generate enough funds how will a junior basketball association drag that much extra cash into its organisation to pay for these people. And just to clarify, when I mean association I mean each member club. There is only so much recreation dollars and sponsorship dollars out there and we are competing with many other sports/activities.

This to me is the big challenge going forward.

SAW,

Paying a Coaching Director is an investment. 40K is better spent on a JCD than on a senior program. For example, why pay for a Eric Bradley if you can invest the money back into the junior program and produce 5 players of his ability.

The money is there, just check the books. The problem is most clubs only think short term.

Fabio,

Your right, there is another option and that is to spend the dollars already coming in in a different manner. But I still question whether each club would be able to "find" 40k.

Surely Eric Bradley wasn't being paid 40k by Woodville. What is the new salary cap?

The salary cap is $25K for both team combined and after that you have coaches salaries and court hire and other expenses and most juniorm programs give their senior programs $50k. Last season some clubs might have been spending more than this on their teams. I must agree with Fabio that investing in a junior program means that a club can produce enough senior players that have a bond to the club. BASA spends $200K per year on their three coaches who generate nothing for the sport. Give this money back to the clubs and we are half way there. Either that or give us pro/rel and the SAW we will see if your club wuold rather spend all their resources on theri senior program or improve their junior programs resource allocation.

The Big A..,

From my count, and my failing memory, I think our ABA team has 80% of its ABA squad come up from its juniors. It might be more. Don't know numbers on women side but their is a lot of current junior players there as well.

Unfortunately I suspect it will be a long wait before we find out the answer to your question.

SAW,

I have an idea as to which club you are involved with, but not sure. If you let me know then I will tell you the origin of all your senio players.

I beleive two clubs are heading towards paying full time Junior Development Officers. Good money I beleive.

And the clubs are?

Sturt and Forestville!!!!!

Sturt JDO is being paid by Sturt?

Why is the Vic government helping with Sturt's JDO. So what money are we talking about?

well done boys your all legends