Basketball On The Internet.

BASKETBALL SA needs to extract the digit and either make its 2014 State Basketball League something truly worth contesting, "pull the pin" and return to the SEABL or have its clubs "demerge".

We all know demerging is all the rage right now and truly I wonder if the SBL breaking away from under BSA's auspices to run itself wouldn't be a preferable move.

Another year of an 18-game "elite" season has come and gone and, most likely, BSA officials are relieved they won't have to worry about that again until next March.

I swear it truly comes across as if the SBL - still ridiculously called the "CABL" for no real season, even though a name such as "cable" should have caught on by now if it was ever going to - is almost an imposition on BSA.

As if releasing draws, filling in the results, compiling championship ladders and collating stats is a bit of a nuisance when there are money-spinners such as the State Junior Championships to run.

This farcical situation in South Australia is in such desperate need of repair that there are only three genuine options.

Well, there are four, but the fourth one is the least desirable because it is for BSA to just continue doing the same-old, same-old, as our once outstanding men's and women's SBL competitions degenerate into something even less than what they are now.

If it wasn't for a few 36ers playing in the men's comp and a couple of OK imports, it wouldn't be worth going to a game until the playoffs.

The women's comp is OK because there is a strong Lightning presence and quality players such as Jess Foley, Tess Madgen, Mia Newley and several others make it passable. But is that it?

We want a "passable" elite-level competition that is "OK"?

Well, that is what is being served up year after year by BSA so let's examine our genuine options - No.4 still being, sadly, the most likely.

Option 1: Turn the SBL into something worth contesting.

How?

Easy. First, go back to Mildura Heat with cap in hand and beg them to revisit wanting to leave the Big V comp. That's no knock on Big V.

The travel has been an issue for Mildura which is why the Heat inquired about playing in our SBL a year ago. A fortnightly trip to Adelaide is easier than trekking across Victoria.

BSA just scratched its collective hairpiece and wasn't the slightest bit pro-active. After all, bringing in Mildura would make the comp more difficult to organise. And a road trip that took you out of Adelaide?

Heaven forbid. Our delicate little clubs would have a conniption!

But here's what should have happened.

BSA should have been all over it. It should have sent representatives to Mildura to make this work.

It should have stopped in the Riverland, gathered together the forces which created the Riverland Raiders and offered financial and resource aid to get the club up again.

And if, as in Tasmania where Launceston, Hobart, Devonport don't get along and hence, no NBL club, BSA no longer could draw together the disparite elements from Renmark, Berri, Barmera, Waikerie, Loxton etcetera, then fine.

Make the offer to the Renmark Steamers and get them activated as a BSA club.

What that would do, other than show BSA actually gives a flying fandango about basketball outside Adelaide, is make the Renmark-Mildura trip a two-game roadie.

But why stop at 12 clubs?

Horsham Hornets last year decided after 23 seasons and six championships, their time in the Big V basketball league had come to an end.

Again, the tyranny of travel was a big factor.

"If you would have said to me at the start that in 23 years, we would have still been doing this commute from Horsham to Melbourne, I would have laughed at you," Hornets stalwart Owen Hughan told The Wimmera Mail-Times newspaper.

"Everyone that has been involved with the Big V program has done a fantastic job and the result of that was that we've had three kids go to the Australian Institute of Sport, 25 Victorian under-age representatives, eight All-Australians and 130 Vic Country players."

Hughan conceded the pathway for budding Horsham basketballers to follow in the footsteps of NBL players Aaron Bruce, our own 36er Mitch Creek and Shaun Bruce would be "very hard" without the Big V Hornets.

Did anyone from BSA give him a call?

You know the answer.

Hughan is an iconic figure in Australian basketball. As coach of Coburg Giants in the NBL's formative years, he compiled a 37-17 (69%) win-loss record and under his coaching, Ray Borner became the first Australian league MVP in 1985.

The Hornets in our SBL?

Why not?

And let's not stop there.

Mount Gambier Lakers play in Victoria's CBL competition.

Why aren't we trying to get them into our league?

Because it means making a freaking effort. Getting out of the comfort zone that is the simplicity of plugging 10 Adelaide-based team names into a computer and watching it spit out a nice draw.

Yeah. BSA's preferred "Option 4", the do-nothing special.

Let's take a leap of faith and assume someone at BSA has actually galvanised to try and turn the competition legitimately into the Central Australian Basketball League.

The CABL's North Conference is Central District Lions, Mildura Heat, North Adelaide Rockets, Norwood Flames, Riverland Raiders, West Adelaide Bearcats, Woodville Warriors.

The CABL's South Conference is Eastern Mavericks, Forestville Eagles, Horsham Hornets, Mount Gambier Lakers, South Adelaide Panthers, Southern Tigers, Sturt Sabres.

Each team plays its conference opponents twice (6x2=12 games) and its rival conference opponents once (7x1=7 games). OK. It's only a 19-game regular season but there is travel, there are new faces, there is excitement and the desire to be part of the CABL.

(You can always play each team in your conference three times, which would be 18 games, plus the seven from the other conference for a 25-game regular season.)

But in truth, with two conferences, why not throw in a mid-season All Star Game?

Wow. The possibilities are endless and exciting if you pull your finger out and actually DO something.

Before you tell me one, two or more of the additional teams I am suggesting would not be viable for this reason or that reason, have you seen the stadium at Millicent, for example?

There are other options worth exploring if we want a genuine CABL. It just takes effort and vision.

Sadly, those are in short supply.

Option 2: Rejoin the SEABL

If running a real SBL is so darn difficult, then why not go "back to the future"?

Dump or move the Youth League, which is fading on a weekly basis anyway and which plays at an Adelaide Arena which did not have functioning scoreboards or even toilet paper in the loos half the time. Soap dispensers? Forget it.

Yeah. I know BSA no longer owns the venue but the fact it didn't lift a finger on those issues reinforces the widely-held belief it only cares about its State Junior Championships, its State junior teams and running its $$$-making competitions.

Senior comps - and YL qualifies as senior - are a bit of a burden if you have to do more than produce a fixture and a premiership table.

OK then. Why not simply shift the women's SBL back onto Tuesday nights at the Arena - scoreboards and toilets fixed, of course - and the men back onto Wednesday nights?

All the teams, all the games under one roof, one night a week.

It's how it was done from 1957 to 1995.

But here's the pay-off. BSA revives the Adelaide Buffalos composite team to play on weekends in the SEABL.

And for good measure, it revives the Adelaide Opals women's composite team too, though now that the Opals name has been co-opted, it gives them a different SA-oriented nickname.

So we select our best and most promising possible future NBL and WNBL players and send them off to the SEABL to play at a higher level.

So the SBL is satisfied as a midweek competition again and we develop our better players - and don't lose them to interstate teams - to play SEABL.

Everyone wins.

Option 3: Demerge and the clubs run their own SBL.

Pretty self-explanatory and it would give the clubs the chance to explore Option 1 or 2, or come up with their own far better ideas anyway.

Now it would be BSA's turn to have a conniption!

Or would it?

Judging by how little has been done for our elite competitions for the past decade, maybe BSA would like to handball the comp to the clubs.

The clubs could take a leaf from NBL Pty Ltd and register SBL Pty Ltd.

Of course, this would mean ACTIVE club involvement in making their competition something exceptional and newsworthy again.

That might be the stumbling block, so many clubs taking their leads from BSA.

Option 4: Nothing changes

Yes, this is the preferred BSA option, without any shadow of doubt.

Yes, this year (after some years of prompting) the BSA had an SBL season launch with club captains and the media.

But for "media", it was basically me. And I'm probably the one who didn't need a launch. I was looking around for radio or TV sportsnews crews and none were there.

Not even the guys from the Messenger Press.

Oh well. There was an effort made. Just in the wrong direction.

And yes, this year the annual drinkfest known as the Halls-Woollacott Medal counts was a lunch, in a bid to keep drunkness and disorderly behavior to a minimum.

The State Basketball League deserves to be something special.

And it deserves it now!

It is the highest form of the sport in South Australia but until the powers-that-be recognise it as such and treat it accordingly, it will continue to wither and suffer in its futile irrelevance.