Basketball On The Internet.

THE second greatest joy behind Bendigo Spirit yesterday claiming its third WNBL championship is the fact all lovers of this league can now look forward with optimism to April 2 when new ownership under the guidance of CEO Jennie Sager takes over control of this sleeping giant.

That means the last time the WNBL will formally be under the management and administration of Basketball Australia and its appointed "Head of the WNBL" Christy Collier-Hill, will appropriately be on April 1, or, as we all better know it, April Fools Day.

Finally, with the Wollemi Capital Group Syndicate (WCGS) and the National Basketball League (NBL) consortium taking control of the WNBL, we are far less likely to continue experiencing the many and continued stumbles of a management which never was cut out to run an elite weekly interstate competition.

Just last week for example, the WNBL scheduled Game 1 of its best-of-three Bendigo-Townsville Grand Final Series for Wednesday - in direct opposition to Game 3 of the NBL's Illawarra-South East Melbourne semi final series.

Trust me. Many of the people who follow the WNBL also follow the NBL and were more than a little miffed league management could not think of a single other night to program and avoid the clash.

Thursday wasn't available?

And had Townsville managed yesterday to force a deciding Game 3, it was scheduled for Bendigo on Wednesday, when Melbourne United hosts Illawarra Hawks at John Cain Arena in Game 2 of the NBL Championship Series.

Effing ridiculous but exactly the kind of ill-conceived, shake-your-head-in-despair BS those of us who care about the WNBL have been subjected to for years. Let's hope there now will be no more of that.

If we want our league to truly be taken seriously, the people running it need to take it seriously.

Let's go back a fraction to the WNBL awards. Not too many have voiced their displeasure at how many of those awards were simply wrong because the fact is the WNBL can get away with stunts like this because, again, no-one takes it seriously enough to complain.

For starters, who elects a panel - a panel FFS - to determine the awards? Who selected the panel? A different panel?

Surely the MVP was determined from post-game coach's votes but actually, no, it wasn't.

The WNBL's "Awards Committee" determined the winners of the Suzy Batkovic Medal (League MVP), Coach of the Year, Robyn Maher Defensive Player of the Year, Sixth Woman of the Year, Betty Watson Breakout Player of the Year, Cygnett Community Award, Ford Fan MVP and All WNBL First and Second Teams.

Say what? A panel selected the awards? Again, which panel appointed this panel?

The highly esteemed members of the "Award Committee" were the following:

Larissa Anderson – Former WNBL player and coach, WNBL Commentator and Life Member
Paul Camillos – Host of Shooting the Breeze Podcast
Christy Collier-Hill – Head of WNBL
Karen Dalton – Former WNBL player, coach, GM and Life Member
Megan Hustwaite – WNBL Sideline Reporter and Journalist
Robyn Maher – Former WNBL player and Life Member
Nathan Strempel – WNBL Sideline Reporter
Kylie Voevodin – WNBL Referee and Life Member

Seriously? That was the panel? No offence intended Ms Collier-Hill, but WTH would you know about coaching a WNBL team, for example? Not to mention how easy it would be to pick apart this panel - appointed by whom? - and again smack your head that such important decisions were made by such a random collection of voters. Sideline "reporters"?

Sami Whitcomb winning MVP?

Easy. No question. 100% correct. But it should have been on votes so we all now would also definitively know who actually finished second and third - on voting, not a popularity contest.

Coach of the Year? Townsville's Shannon Seebohm?

Give us a break. He wins it now for a record fifth time, more often than Tom Maher won it? More than the WNBL's greatest coach? What a joke. What a farce.

Bendigo's Kennedy Kereama was Coach of the Year by a country mile and it is a national embarrassment that he was not so recognised. Did you watch the Grand Final sweep?  

Oh dear. Maybe we got that wrong. Let's make it up to Bendigo by awarding Abbey Wehrung the Best Sixth Woman award. Yes, excellent. Except the Fire's Alex Fowler had far greater impact.

Oh my. Well let's make it up to Townsville by giving Lauren Cox the Best Defensive award. What? She blocks a few shots. Big deal. Bendigo import Veronica Burton actually locks down players and was by far the Best Defensive Player of 2024-25. That wasn't even close.

Unsure about Burton's bona fides? Ask Nia Coffey. That's the same Coffey who buried Perth with a 36-point semi final game, but who then went for 5 points on 2-of-7 in Game 1 of the Grand Finals and 4 points on 1-of-9 in Game 2. That's right. Burton was guarding her. Cox was swanning about jacking threes.

Oh no. We got it wrong again. Well let's just spin an arrow for the Break-Out Player of the Year and hope for the best! And the winner is ... Abbey Ellis.

Yes, she was great, no issue. But when Collier-Hill references the fact we had a 40-point single game return but Shaniece Swain - who did it - isn't the Break-Out Player, you just know this whole panel idea was farcical and should NEVER be repeated as a concept.

Not that any single winner wasn't worthy. It's the process that wasn't and leaves a poor taste where there should only be champagne.

Thank Naismith the All Star Teams picked themselves and that the Fans MVP winner, Jade Melbourne, was actually determined by the fans.

And thank Naismith BA is out as of April Fools Day. Collier-Hill was still busy yesterday post-Game 2 telling a national - international? - audience that WNBL matches can be seen in 198 countries now.

Yeah. That's huge. It is rating up a sandstorm in Tunisia and a triumph in Tanzania. It's even knocked Tanzania's Got Talent into second place.

And in that great coverage, we still have quality graphics such as these from the Finals: 
Yeah, that's not Alicia Froling above, and if Kennedy is Bendigo's captain, something is amiss.

Roll, on April 2. The WNBL was launched by ballsy club teams and the AIS back in 1981. Being treated with respect, imagination, dignity and vitality needs to now be its cornerstone, not something for which we still have to hope and pray.

Over to you Jennie.