Tournament puts bounce back into ADF basketball

By CMDR Chris Siegmann

ADF basketballers had a unique opportunity over the Australia Day weekend to take on some of the basketball stars of the future at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in Canberra.

ADF teams usually participate in a Canberra carnival over the Australia Day weekend, but owing to the extreme heat and the fire situation, this year’s carnival was cancelled.

Fortunately, the Australian under age teams, who traditionally have a training camp at the AIS in the week after the Canberra carnival, were looking for games to finish their week.

A tournament was quickly arranged and teams from the AIS, ACT Academy of Sport, NSW Institute of Sport, and some local teams, including the ACT’s Australian Basketball Association team the Canberra Gunners, were brought together.

The tournament also included a team representing Oceania, made up of players from Tahiti, New Caledonia, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, who had also come to Canberra to participate in the scheduled carnival after participating in a training camp in Sydney the previous week.

The ADF men’s team beat the Australian Under 16s by more than 20 points, Oceania by 20, went down to the AIS by 3 and lost to the national Under 18s by 25.

The women provided good competition for the ACT Under 20s and Australian Under 16s and 18s, but went down in all their games.

Ultimately, the last-minute tournament provided an excellent workout for ADF basketballers in the lead up to May’s Arafura Games.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the formation of the ADF Basketball Association and to celebrate, a gala ball scheduled for Sydney in October has been organised to mark the occasion.

Past players, referees and managers can contact event organisers Commander Chris Siegmann (chris.sieg mann@defence.gov.au) or Dean Hill (dean.hill@networksolutions.net.au) for more information.

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