Aiming to begin all senior and junior competitions from November 8, the GSBA will host a range of social tournaments throughout the summer season while also running the Shepparton Gators program.
GSBA domestic manager Tony Long explained where things currently stood when it came to restarting competition.
“We are planning to start all competitions from November 8 and we still have registrations open, so we are looking for last-minute entries for people keen to get out and play some basketball. It is a nine-week competition and we envisage that with what the (Victorian) premier has being saying there will be no interruptions,” Long said.
“At this stage we are hoping to open up on an ‘Orange 50’, which is a Basketball Victoria return-to-sport level, that will allow us to have 150 people in the stadium across the two courts.
“The council is requiring all attendees who are 16 and over to be double-vaccinated, while everyone between 12 and 16 needs to be on the pathway to being vaccinated.”
With competition open to players of all ages and abilities, Long said they were expecting many people to take to the court this summer, as the association’s social competitions continued to go from strength to strength.
“We will have Monday and Wednesday nights for the men’s and Wednesday nights for women, we are absolutely looking for more women’s teams at the moment, and then we have the juniors as well,” he said.
“It is looking like we will have anywhere between 800 and 900 people registered to play basketball this season, which will be fantastic, and we are really looking forward to seeing players back on the court.”
As for the Shepparton Gators program, he said preparations for the upcoming season were progressing nicely, with all junior teams finalised and in the midst of training programs.
“We had our Gators trials last week, where we were just finalising the last few teams for our juniors, so we have teams in the boys’ and girls’ competitions from the under-18s through to the under-12s,” he said.
“We officially started training last weekend and now we are progressing to more training with the teams selected and everything is now ramping up with the season now just around the corner.”
Long said there was a lot to look forward to in the coming months, as excitement continued to build around a return to the court.
“Our local competitions and our junior tournaments are the big things coming up in the next little while, as well as the state trials for the under-18s kids, which we will be hosting here,” he said.
“I am a basketball head so it is extremely exciting to finally be able to put these events in place — the kids are extremely happy to be back on court for what promises to be a fantastic summer season.”
Along with the announcements regarding a return to play, the GSBA has announced Josh Waight as its new Big V coach for the upcoming Shepparton Gators senior season.
Long said it was a thrill to appoint Waight to the role and was excited to see what he could do.
“Josh has a lot of experience and has developed some great skills over his time coaching in Ballarat, which he has progressed into the state program, and is now looking to extend that into senior level,” he said.
“He also coaches our under-14s boys’ side as well, so he is going to be in for a very busy period and we are all excited to see what he can do.”
