Basketball On The Internet.

BASKETBALL Australia has to be kidding not having a single WNBL coach interview for the vacant Opals position. That's my (e)mail - that there were three men interviewed, two from Australia and one international.

Now seriously, I know it would only be a courtesy but what about inviting the resident championship coach Bernie Harrower, who is a monty to win WNBL coach of the Year to boot?

OK. Bernie is not the most likely next Opals coach but what about the work Chris Lucas did at Townsville with a smaller budget and just great coaching?

Should someone have reached out to him? He has past Opals assisting experience and been involved with several national junior teams.

Peter Buckle worth an interview?

Even Mark "Time-Out Gobbledegook'' Wright deserved a chance to present.

Of those four, I would have had a serious look at two and probably gone with Lucas, to be honest.

He's strong, smart, amenable and embodies the qualities you want in a national coach.

Buckle is another option but has burnt a few bridges and needs to be in repair mode for the immediate future.

But who are we getting anyway?

Well, either a guy who coaches kids and isn't coaching in the WNBL - yes he is a championship coach but Sight-Challenged Frederick could have coached a team of Lauren Jackson, Penny Taylor, Suzy Batkovic, Belinda Snell, Deanna Smith, Kristen Veal etcetera etcetera to that WNBL crown.

Option Two is another Aussie who has coached an NBL title, has a high profile but has never coached women. Great.

Option Three is a foreigner whose only connection to Australia is through the star Aussie (or two) he has had in various WNBA campaigns.

Come on now. We need a foreigner with no connection to Australian basketball to head up our most important women's team?

Or a junior coach?

Or a men's coach?

That's just a load of BS, BA. Good luck selling that.

I'd go back to Jan Stirling before I went forward with that. And if people didn't apply, I'd head-hunt.

And here I thought Kristina Keneally was going to be the new broom at BA. Instead, all we have is new spin and new spin doctors.

 

SPEAKING of spin, how crass was it for the WNBL to come out during its finals series and declare travelling teams in the playoffs would now have access to the Virgin (VIP) Lounge?

That breathless announcement came out after the first semi when Townsville had travelled to Adelaide and Dandenong all the way to Bendigo.

So who was travelling by air after that?

Just the Fire. First to Dandy, then to Bendy.

Well guess what?

Townsville is one of the few WNBL clubs which ALREADY picks up the tab for its girls to go to the Virgin Lounge. So for BA/WNBL to loudly proclaim: "Virgin Australia will grant access to Virgin Velocity lounges to Women's National Basketball League players for the remainder of this season'' was that good ole BA BS in action yet again.

The news Virgin also had agreed to allow WNBL access to the Velocity program next season, including the lounge, is good, if overdue.

"We can't pretend that equality exists in any sport in Australia; but Basketball Australia will continue as it has begun under my leadership, working through these challenges with a clear-eyed focus on equality and valuing the accomplishment of all athletes equally," Keneally said in her press statement.

Yeah. Right.

AND finally. I have it on good authority the WNBL on Friday plans to brow-beat its clubs into a 16-game 2013-14 season - nine teams, everyone plays eight opponents twice, home/away - to accommodate an ABC-TV request.

Say what?

Our primary competition reduced to 16 games?

I'm also hearing the nine-team comp will be pressured to reconsider its present final four system for a five-team finals format because the ABC wants an extra week of finals.

Oh for goodness sake.

Is that one pi$$-ant game on telly a week really worth continually compromising our great game?

More than half the teams in finals again? Really? Welcome to being a laughing stock once more.

Didn't Keneally and the bovver boys at BA shut down Canberra's live streaming of its home games because "wnbl./tv'' was in the wind?

The ABC should be told to go and get knotted and our clubs decide how their competition is run.

So sick of this cap-in-hand, please-may-I-have-more (or in this instance, please-may-I-have-less just-give-me-something) attitude of BA when it comes to coverage.

What the hell was the point of the six-month long review of the WNBL when all of that independent panel's recommendations - bar one, dropping the AIS - have been ignored?

Just ridiculousness.

A 24-round season - playing your opponents three times - makes sense and so too does a 1v4, 2v3 best-of-three semi-final series, followed by a best-of-three Grand Final series.

BA needs to stop being so lily-livered, show some onions and tell the ABC this is what it is doing - do you want in or out?

And if the national broadcaster bids farewell, so be it.

Extract the digit on wnbl.tv - or is BA scared of what the real paying audience for its product may be? - and start treating one of the best leagues in the world with the type of prestige it deserves.

Imagine if the Bendigo-Townsville series had been best-of-three?

Full house in Bendigo, sold-out in Townsville and sold-out again for Game Three in Bendigo.

Yeah, that would have been bad for the game ... Not!

What's bad for the game is some of the people administering it.

Like the NBL, the WNBL was driven by clubs looking for regular interstate competition.

This kind of short-sighted, half-a$$ed, visionless, passionless management and administrative thinking is what holds our game back and should make both the NBL and WNBL clubs think seriously about quitting the whole "One Basketball" concept and going back to determining their own fates.

"One Basketball'' is one crock of cost-cutting, cost-saving crap.