Hoops

Sa Juniors vrs Vic System

My kids have been involved in the Vic VJBL comp for the past 7 years, and I can say that we have not had any 60 minute training sessions for rep bball. The team trainings are usually 2 hours Sunday, and 90 minutes mid week. I am not sure which clubs are only training for 60 minutes?

Having being involved with the Vic representative competition for more than 20 years, most kids who play in the Friday night representative competition do in fact then play domestic hoops (club, school – or both!) on the Saturday as well. Some Associations do in fact impose a mandatory requirement that the kids play in their Association’s domestic competition whilst some do not. As kids get older, this requirement in most places becomes more relaxed.

It is also worth noting that for a child that plays both representative and domestic (Friday & Saturday), they would have at least two training sessions per week (one for each team), if not three or even four training sessions in total as some representative teams have 2-3 training sessions per week, with one session often involving specialist skills training. And if the kid is in the ITC program, or Vic state squad, then that just adds to the workload.

The key thing is that in Vic the majority of talented kids play two games a week back-to-back on the Friday and Saturday with at least two training sessions per week.

It is worth noting that the elite players are probably playing at least 2 games a week, at least 3 team training sessions, plus the ITC program sessions, and plus any state squad training / tryouts requirements. It is a very heavy workload when you get to the top-end.

I have personally seen some players thrive on the workload of 2, but I have seen just as many players burnt out by this system.