Basketball On The Internet.

INSPIRED by the high of a Bronze Medal finish by the Opals in Sydney at the World Cup ahead of the WNBL season, our national domestic competition across 2022-23 has been one of the best ever, even though TV coverage was off to a shockingly awful and amateurish start and the Grand Final now looks a foregone conclusion.

The opening rounds of the season saw some of the finest women's basketball action in the league's 42-year history and the return to local courts of the living legend Lauren Jackson in a Southside uniform only further bolstered the competition.

The Flyers even staged a night at John Cain Arena for a February fixture against Sydney Flames and a record attendance of 7,681 watched a great game unfold, even though its star attraction was injured in the first minute and a half and out for the remainder of the season.

That was a positively shocking development in an otherwise great night but one which Basketball Australia, as the administrators of the WNBL, again reported on factually incorrectly.

Here's what BA said about the crowd:

Of course, that wasn't actually correct as this cutting from that 1995 Grand Final game proves. (Maybe just skip to the fourth paragraph):

So in actual FACT, the crowd in 1995 was "only" 7,100, NOT 7,500. It was a fact of which BA was informed and which truly makes that 7,681 attendance look even better.

Small point maybe. But is it so difficult to get your facts right, especially when you were informed in advance?

It is typical of BA's (mis)management of the WNBL generally.

For example, many were upset last week when the deciding Game 3 of a hard-fought Southside-Melbourne semi final clashed on Wednesday night with the NBL Grand Final's Game 5 decider.

Oh well, venue availability etcetera - you know the score. Well no, BA clearly did not.

In its draw for the 2022-23 season, it included in the schedule not one but TWO weekend breaks for FIBA international windows WHICH DID NOT EXIST!

That's 20 to 21 days lost for a furphy FIBA window. So, get the season draw correct in the first place and the WNBL finishes two weeks ago with no clashes with the NBL, or AFL and NRL for that matter.

Does anyone's head ever roll at BA? 

And for however great the regular season games were, particularly early while still in the thrall of an exceptional World Cup, those were the very weeks TV coverage was, in a word, abysmal.

For another Australian league claiming to be "the No.2 in the world" - BA official Paul Maley was touting that nonsense five years ago now - the coverage could not have been worse and resembled some of the most hideous live streams from far flung NBL1 outposts.

Some of the commentary also has been turgid but some of it unintentionally funny. Carrie Graf's insights and call are great, but come any Southside game and she could not get past calling Lauren Jackson "LJ" virtually all night.

There were so many LJ references - and never a Jackson one - that people could be forgiven for checking the roster to see if Elle Jaye was indeed another Southside recruit.

The Flyers appear to be the commentators' favourites, especially when they can trot out a fact such as Townsville - who they face in Game 2 of the Grand Final Series at home tomorrow night - may have beaten Southside every time this season, but Elle Jaye missed one of those games.

Um, Southside was at full strength in Townsville early this season when the Fire won - and handsomely - without Shyla Heal and Zitina Aokuso. Probably too long ago to recall.

So now let's switch tack and talk about Townsville's "terrific system" which has had the Flyers at arm's length all season.

Again, the Fire were travelling OK but it was the return of Aokuso from injury and recruitment of Heal when the Sydney Flames kerfuffle erupted that turned Townsville into the team to beat for the flag.

And why is it so very difficult to have commentators - particularly in a Melbourne series such as the Flyers-Boomers semi finals - in the venue?

In that decisive Game 3 of the semi when Leilani Mitchell was whistled for an offensive foul against Maddi Rocci, it was, in fact - or according to the play-by-play stats - a Mitchell turnover for dribbling out of bounds.

Say what?

The TV crew are lauding Rocci's magnificent defence when the call was quite different. But wait. There's more.

My information is when that call was later queried of our WNBL officiating hierarchy, they all agreed it was not a Mitchell offensive foul but a Rocci defensive foul. So who had it right?

The referee? No.

The TV callers? Um, no.

The statisticians? Hell no.

What a farce.

But again, if you're not even in the building, how can you give a genuinely informed call? 

We're No.2?

Yes, in a lot of ways for sure. Shame though that such a superior women's competition is treated so very poorly so very often. And the WNBL's social media folks?

Perhaps someone could wake them soon. There's a Grand Final Series on.