Hoops

Vic versus SA-state of play

as a final note - I think this view of the SA junior "system" is supported by the constant whining about "poaching" of players - It means ( to me) that many coaches are actually seeing "inheriting" strong players is a way to succeed - which it is of course - but it ( IMHO) is the wrong mindset to have if you are about developing a players "career".

Sorry but this will be a rant as you have hit a hot button for me -

Its the numbers - Stupid ( play on that famous " its the economy stupid" quote.)

I have observed and participated in a LOT of basketball in 3 states , and a little basketball in 2 others in the last 35 years.

In respect of INTER-state ( national) junior competition, the ( successful) selection and development process is quite dependent upon the numbers.

Remember that there was no HUGE outcry ( or drop in team competition standard) when Bogut DID not represent Vic in every junior year.


When you have a lot of juniors with adequate skills to choose from , it like the art of marble/stone sculpting - the skill is seeing what needs to be taken AWAY from the mix ( of 60+ very adequate players being trialed) in order to create a finished shiny product of 14 - with a LOT of numbers of a particular standard to choose from - you have a number of blocks (teams) you can start from that have absolutely no flaws within them. This even then allows for catering to the coaches' own coaching style strengths -


And many ( sometime all) of those individual players have had to compete against others to even get recognition/selection.

When you have only a few individuals for each position , it is more like painting - how can I use these single colours to combine them into an overall piece of functioning art - I have to select and add what I can find on the palette board to produce something that works. A defensive coaching genius may have quite poor defensive players to have to work with and just canniot "paint over" the deficiencies.

These are two totally different coaching perspectives to come from - and INHO there are few coaches at any level who can do both. This MAY mean that the Vic coaching/selection "style" will not work in SA.

There are also at least two serious problems in the skill sets developed by the individuals within this second smaller (local) environment.

Firstly they can be very successful in their weekly competition with minor and major skill deficiencies - because there are fewer quality players to "embarrass " them.

Thus the coach can spend enormous amounts of time try to get them to be ambidextrous in ( say) lay-ups - but when they can still score 20 a game with only strong hand layups - then going any further has no priority in either the players-or parents- mind. Of course they get shown up at the national level - but its too late then - and it only happens one week of the year - not every second or third week. - Kids forget real easy.

The second is the attitude that the junior player ( and their parent) unconsciously develops - they view that they are already "good enough" - This can be made worse by "good" coaching

- Coaches usually coach for that season ( or even game) in mind - not for the player's career. I was involved in developing 2 very high quality point guards - for their first 6 years in juniors ( U12-U16) one of my main concerns was to ensure they NEVER scored for than 12 points in a game - and that they ALWAYS had a team which lost regularly and in which they were not the gun player ( thus a 13 year old playing "B grade seniors) - { as an aside I understood that this is exactly the development process that Pat Mills had - he was playing with his dad and uncle in senior grades from the age of 12 - and played like a 12 year old too !!) I needed to ensure they did not become addicted to the score thrill - their state representative coaches always used them as offensive weapons as they were the most highly skilled players that they had.

Those two players went on to quite successful NCAA careers and have/will play WNBL - meanwhile those junior players who ( in my opinion) had similar ( or even greater) potential, have not attained anywhere near the same success - as their own local coaches adopted the representative coach's view of "lets ride their scoring" - which was actually good for that team - because they WERE the best scorers they had.

As a note - i never had to teach either player much at all --- directly -- I just made damn sure that the other average and below average players got developed enough to actually challenge those "alpha dog" players at practice - this was what made the "alpha's" push hard to keep ahead of the "lesser players" - in the large numbers game in vic - this happens automatically - I strongly suspect that here in SA that just does not happen "naturally" as the local coaches (probably) coach for this season - which means riding their stars - and not trying to develop the lesser lights.

I hope this makes sense.

end of rant.

Anon #220 ...

No not suggesting at all that the Classic should be changed - I love the Classic ...

The discussion was around why junior basketball seems so much stronger in Vic than SA.

I think there are many factors (pure numbers being a key one) - but was wondering about the differences in competition structure between the states and how much influence this has.

I agree with Bear that both tournaments and formal competitions are important to player development and long term success.

Is Vic perfect ? Probably not, but the competition structure in VJBL (especially the grading system) combined with tournaments such as the Classic (and others) seems to be doing a pretty good job right now.

Tournaments are there to support Associations that are too far away to participate in a high level regular competition, they are for elite teams or other teams to be used for development and practice or to find out which team is the best over a broader area where teams at the highest levels can't compete due to distances.

Tournaments are important factors in basketball and unique to the sport in some ways as they offer opportunity and great memories for participants, but true development and long term success comes from a high level, well run and regular competition such as the VJBL as an example.

The other thing I don't get in SA is the notion of the SA Junior Championships being a "Classic like" tournament on one weekend of the year.

This seems to:
1. Water down the importance of the district competition, and
2. Skew results because it is a compressed tournament environment, not a home and away season.

For example, I can see that in U18 girls, Forestville won the state championship, but are not even in the top 4 in district div 1 (albeit having played one less game) - what the ?

In Vic, the VJBL season is a full 18 round home and away competition, with an 8 team finals series in each division. This pretty much means the best and most consistent team wins the state title.

There should be one primary title that any team should strive for over a competition year - in SA, I can't figure out what that is.

Two things come to mind ...

1. Pure numbers - according to Wyki, Adelaide has 1.2m people, Melbourne over 4m. So a significant element is pure numbers - in Vic there are 3 times as many kids competing to get into the best teams.

2. Some smart things in VJBL structure ...

a. As inferred in one comment above, the VJBL grading system is excellent - there is only one season each year from Mar to Sept, every year from Nov - Feb are multiple phases of grading to create the divisions in the competition. This happens EVERY year so the best 20 teams qualify into the top Championship division. You can check out the grading maps on the VJBL Web site to see how it works.

b. Having said that, there still ends up a significant divide between the top and bottom teams within the 20. So a recent innovation that now applies across all age groups in the Championship division is that the team compete in two pools of 10 for the first nine rounds, then the top five and bottom five from each pool combine to form a Championship and Reserve division for the second half of the season. This ensures that the best 10 teams are competing for the title by end of season.

No doubt there are other factors as well and you can't do much about the numbers game. But competition structure is easy to fix and the VJBL has certainly been prepared to evolve that over the years to create the strongest possible playing environment.

If this is not happening in SA, it should at least be a good place to start !

MS I am intrigued about the way you have observed a widening gap and wonder if it is related to coaching, or maybe the fact that football is the number one sport and many young boys at Nationals may be playing basketball as a second or third option?

This goes on in all states, but it may be as simple as weight of numbers too...

Facilities and cooperation etc, are all important factors and rightly so there is a combination of many things that could be a causal factor here.

Not knowing the state of S.A. basketball at ground roots level I am only making assumptions, the participation rate for junior hoops and cooperation with other sports in Victoria is high in many areas, but I wouldn't say this is the be all and end all!

Population = participation = money = coaching = sucess