Hoops

Under 23 youth league

'If BSA were serious about increasing basketball participation rates, they'd look outside of the elite/top end and more at the after school/social side'

Pickles ex-housemate, I think you'll find the charter for Basketball SA is to run the elite-level competitions and looki after SA representative teams. I thought that's why there is a move toward District clubs forming associations and running after school and association comps to increase participation.

My understanding is that the Under 23 Youth League is aimed at bridging the gap for elite level juniors towards the ABL level.

Interesting topics here but I question if the clubs are smart enough to make the decisions to make this work...

The only example I can see in making the current system work is Norwood Women, they have both their reserves and Under 21 teams at the top of the ladder have about 5 players that are set in each team then there is about 10 floating players bouncing between the 2 teams to fill numbers. They are going to qualify the floaters in both reserves and Under 21s and have a good crack at both championships.
I believe they have approached the leagues with the spirit that BSA had in mind when they came up with the idea of D2 and U21s on the same night.
If others clubs cant make this work how is it going to help a club like norwood their 5 set reserves players are too old to play YL and the 5 set 21s arent good enough to play reserves. The 10 floaters now have to make up the numbers and 1/2 of them will have to miss ABL training once a week.
I dont think you will find clubs that have to make the decision as to which night these players play will take a league (1 of the 2) seriously. either YL or reserves will suffer unless the clubs decide to pursue 1 league as a feeder and the other becomes almost social.

The initial plan is to Scrap the Under 20/21 program and play the Youth league -YL- (under 23) on Tuesday nights, thus moving reserves to Mondays.
The thought process is with large amounts of players moving to the YL the Division 3 players will move up to Reserves and Div 4 to Div 3 and so on...

Here are some of the points from the 'Competitions Committee' in all their wisdom!

• The removal of the Under 20/21 competitions
• Scheduling all Under 23 divisions on Tuesday night
• Moving the Men’s and Women’s Division 2 competitions from Tuesday night to Monday night, and opening them up to multiple teams from all clubs currently participating in the Basketball SA junior and senior district competitions
• Scheduling the Men’s and Women’s Division 3, 4 and 5 competitions on Wednesday night

Eligibility for the Under 23 competitions will be restricted to players aged Under 23, i.e. no overage players will be allowed
• For the purpose of a player’s ability to play in multiple divisions, the Under 23 competition will be treated as a standalone competition, meaning that players will be able to play in any combination of the Senior (including CABL), Under 23 and Junior competitions in any given week, but will not be able to play in multiple divisions of any of these three competitions (other than the existing by-law which
allows Central ABL starters to play in the division 2 senior competition the following week)

The purpose of the Youth League is:
• To bridge the gap between the Junior State League and the Central ABL, for elite
players aged 17-22 who are either not yet involved in the Central ABL, or who do
not receive significant court time. The competition currently lacks a true
development league whose main purpose is to provide an effective pathway from
juniors to Central ABL, and division 1 of the Youth League would serve this
purpose.
• To assist with player retention in this age bracket in all divisions. There is a high
dropout rate in the 17-22 age bracket, and is believed that a multiple division
Under 23 competition providing an appropriate level of competition for all players
would encourage players to stay in the sport.

Like it or not, I am a not BTW, it looks like we will be having the YL next year at some point, I wonder how many ABL coaches are going to allow players to miss trainings to compete in this exercise!
I think and have for a while this is just a ploy to discourage younger players from playing ABL and beyond and I believe it will push players from the sport!