Nunawading Basketball

Have been playing here since under 12s- that's over 15 years, and in the past couple of years the standard of reffing has dropped dramatically. We have walked off with scratches and bruises from the other team with not a single call made against them. There are a handful of good refs here but unfortunately they are the minority. Something needs to be done because nobody is enjoying the games anymore.

I currently compete in a Men’s Division on a week night. I’ve played in this association for approximately 5 seasons and it has gotten worse and worse. We were placed in a division with a refs team (which is fine) and were advised that because the association has insufficient ref numbers that the ref team would play their games 6:30pm at Nunawading. The rest of the league are forced to play at surrounding suburb stadiums (either 8:30/09:30pm) which are sub par at best until a sufficient amount of refs can be organised, meaning the rest of the league only play at Nunawading once every 5 weeks. It’s since been 17 weeks within the season and nothing has changed or been communicated, the ref team still solely plays at Nunawading at 6:30pm! My frustration boiled over completely when the association was advised by multiple teams throughout the leagues that the basketballs being used are of low quality. They took on this feedback by asking teams to pay $8 extra in fees in order to purchase more basketballs. Although $8 is not much I’m dumbfounded how incompetent/oblivious this association has become and start to wonder where our registration fees go, because it doesn’t go to improving ref numbers or new basketballs. Before this season we were advised Team turnover was a concern coming into this season and can tell you that won’t change any time soon and that they can add one more team to that turnover list too.

With a child who plays basketball all across Melbourne, and so having been to many, many stadiums, this has to be one of the worst stadiums by modern standards. Whilst the courts themselves are in reasonable condition, the seating for spectators is almost non-existent, and is so close to the court markings that you could high-five a player running past (or trip the coach over as they pace up and down the sidelines). Incredibly loud (yes I know, it's a basketball stadium, not a library), scorers bench has no room for more than two people (in rep, there must be four). It feels like a 1970s school gym. Lift your game.