1981 WIBC season

1981 WIBC season
1981 WIBC season
League	Women's National Basketball League
Sport	Basketball
Duration	19 June 1981 –
Number of teams	9
TV partner(s)	ABC
Regular season
Top seed	North Adelaide Rockets
Top scorer	Julie Nykiel (Noarlunga Tigers)
Finals
Champions	St. Kilda Saints
Runners-up	North Adelaide Rockets
WNBL seasons
	← None 1982 →

Last updated April 29, 2022

The Women's Interstate Basketball Conference (WIBC) was the inaugural season of what would become the Australian Women's National Basketball League (WNBL).

History

On 4 October 1980, during the Australian Women’s Club Championship in Sydney, a meeting of delegates from six of the leading clubs in Australian women’s basketball was held. The clubs were North Adelaide Rockets, West Adelaide Bearcats and Glenelg from South Australia and CYMS (Catholic Young Men's Society), Melbourne Telstars and St. Kilda Saints from Victoria.^[1]

The meeting resolved to form a two-round competition between these teams to be held in July and August in 1981. The basis for the idea was that many of the top sides in both states wanted a varied competition from their standard state leagues as well as a suitable preparation for the Australian Club Championship, which was held on an annual basis for the top 24 teams in the country. With the formation of the men's National Basketball League in 1979, the women felt that one of the best ways to develop the game was to provide more opportunities for the best players and clubs to play against each other more regularly.^[1]

A major consideration was finance and with this in mind the competition was formed with the six teams with a full home and away series between all teams with three games on one weekend to save costs. The New South Welsh teams of Bankstown Bruins and Sutherland Sharks were not happy due to costs and offered to pay their own way to Melbourne and Adelaide where they would play each team once for double points.^[1]

In 1981, the Australian Institute of Sport was also opened and the men's head coach Dr. Adrian Hurley contacted the clubs and asked whether the AIS could also participate in the competition to commence later that year.^[1]

The competition commenced on 19 June 1981 with the first game to be played in Adelaide between the AIS and West Adelaide Bearcats.^[1]

The competition was named the Women’s Interstate Basketball Conference with each the teams paying the sum of $25 to be a part of the WIBC – giving a central fund of $200 to conduct the competition.^[1]

Ladder

The ladder at the end of the regular season.^[2]

	Team	Played	Won	Lost	For	Against	Won %	%
1	North Adelaide Rockets	13	10	3	832	713	77	116.69
2	St. Kilda Saints	13	11	2	892	751	85	118.77
3	West Adelaide Bearcats	13	6	7	803	848	46	94.69
4	Melbourne Telstars	13	8	5	880	786	62	111.96
5	Bankstown Bruins	10	6	4	599	571	60	104.9
6	Catholic Young Men's Society	13	5	8	807	840	38	96.07
7	Noarlunga Tigers	13	4	9	828	957	31	86.52
8	Australian Institute of Sport	10	2	8	581	656	20	88.57
9	Sutherland Sharks	10	2	8	523	623	20	83.95

Finals

Semi Finals			Grand Final

2	St Kilda Saints	80

3	West Adelaide Bearcats	53
			2	St Kilda Saints	77

			1	North Adelaide Rockets	58
1	North Adelaide Rockets	66

4	Melbourne Telstars	63

The inaugural winner was St. Kilda Saints defeating North Adelaide Rockets 77 points to 58. St. Kilda Saints also went on to win the Victorian State Championship and the Australian Club Championship in Melbourne defeating Bankstown Bruins in the final. St. Kilda Saints had three Australian representatives in Tracy Morris, Karen Ogden and Patricia Cockrem.^[1]

Related Research Articles

The Women's National Basketball League (WNBL) is the pre-eminent professional women's basketball league in Australia. It is currently composed of eight teams. The league was founded in 1981 and is the women's counterpart to the National Basketball League (NBL). Several WNBL teams have NBL counterparts. The Adelaide Lightning, Melbourne Boomers, Perth Lynx, Southside Flyers and Sydney Uni Flames are the current WNBL teams sharing a market with an NBL team. The current league champions are the Melbourne Boomers, who won their second title in 2022.

West Adelaide Bearcats is a NBL1 Central club based in Adelaide, South Australia. The club fields both a men's and women's team. The club is a division of the overarching West Adelaide Basketball Club (WABC), the major administrative basketball organisation in Adelaide's western suburbs. The Bearcats play their home games at Port Adelaide Recreation Centre.

Belinda Snell is an Australian women's basketball player. She is a member of the Australia women's national basketball team, and has won two silver medals in basketball at the 2004 & 2008 Summer Olympics, a bronze medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics, a gold medal at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, a gold medal at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, a gold medal at the 2006 World Championships, and a bronze medal at the 2014 World Championships.

The University of Canberra Capitals are an Australian professional women's basketball team competing in the Women's National Basketball League (WNBL). The team is based in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory. In 2014 the University of Canberra Union took control of the Capitals from Basketball ACT. The University of Canberra is the current naming rights sponsor for the Capitals.

AIS Arena is a multi-purpose arena in Canberra, Australia. Its capacity is 5,200 and it was built in 1980. The arena was opened by the Prime Minister of Australia, Malcolm Fraser, on 26 January 1981 and was originally named the National Indoor Sports Centre and was the inaugural home of the Australian Institute of Sport.

The 1979 NBL season was the inaugural season of the National Basketball League (NBL). The championship was decided by a sudden death Grand Final between first and second.

The 1981 NBL season was the third season of the National Basketball League (NBL).

Philip John SmythAM is an Australian former professional basketball player and coach. He won three National Basketball League (NBL) championships with the Canberra Cannons before going on to be a three-time championship-winning head coach of the NBL's Adelaide 36ers. Smyth was a four-time Olympian with the Australian national basketball team.

Geelong Supercats is a NBL1 South club based in Geelong, Victoria. The club fields a team in both the Men's and Women's NBL1 South. The club is affiliated with Basketball Geelong and Geelong United Basketball. The Supercats play their home games at Geelong Arena.

Tess Madgen is an Australian professional basketball player. She currently plays for the Melbourne Boomers in the WNBL. She is also a member of the Australian Opals.

Kristen Veal is an Australian basketball player. She won three Women's National Basketball League (WNBL) championships as a member of the Canberra Capitals, and has also played for the Sydney Uni Flames and the Logan Thunder. She was drafted in the first round of the WNBA draft, and was the youngest player to ever play in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). She has represented Australia as a member of the Australia women's national basketball team.

Marisa Rowe is a former Australian women's basketball player.

Karen Ogden is a former Australian women's basketball player.

The 1983 NBL season was the fifth season of the National Basketball League (NBL). The regular season began on 10 February and ended on 18 June. The finals began on 23 June with the divisional finals before concluding on 4 July with the NBL Grand Final.

Vicki Daldy is a retired Australian women's basketball player, who represented the country at both junior and senior levels. Her married name is Vicki Valk.

Jessica Mary Ellen Foley is a retired Australian basketballer and Australian rules footballer. As a basketballer, Foley represented Australia at both junior and senior levels and played for Duke in college basketball in the United States. As an Australian rules footballer, Foley played for the Adelaide Football Club in the AFL Women's (AFLW), playing in an AFL Women's premiership in her first season.

The 1981 NBL Finals was the postseason tournament of the National Basketball League's 1981 season, which began in February. The finals began on 27 June. The tournament concluded with the Launceston Casino City defeating the Nunawading Spectres in the NBL Grand Final on 28 June.

Ken Richardson was an American basketball player who played his entire professional career in Australia. He became a South Australian basketball icon playing for the West Adelaide Bearcats in the SA State League and the National Basketball League (NBL). Richardson, who played his college basketball at Ohio Dominican University and was a Mid Ohio Conference First Team selection in 1970–71, joined West Adelaide in 1974, winning the 1975 Woollacott Medal en route to his first SA state championship. He went on to win the NBL's inaugural Most Valuable Player award in 1979 and led the Bearcats to the NBL championship in 1982 as player-coach.

Lorraine May Landon is an Australian basketball administrator and former player and coach. She was introduced to the game of basketball through the Bankstown Bruins and represented the New South Wales team between 1968 and 1975. Landon was general manager of the Bankstown Association and the Bankstown Basketball Stadium's manager and was the volunteer tea manager of the Australia women's national basketball team. She was subsequently appointed manager of the National Basketball League's (NBL) Sydney Kings and the Women's National Basketball League's (WNBL) Sydney Uni Flames and guided both the Australia men's national wheelchair basketball team and the Australia women's national wheelchair basketball team to Paralympic success. Landon is an inductee of the Australian Basketball Hall of Fame and received honours such as the FIBA Order of Merit and the Australian Sports Medal.

Reginald Leonardo Biddings was an American professional basketball player who spent his career in the Australian National Basketball League (NBL) and South East Basketball League (SEBL). Biddings holds the NBL record for most points scored in a 40-minute game with 63 points.

References

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "History of the WNBL". Women's National Basketball League. Archived from the original on 1 December 2011. Retrieved 23 January 2012.
↑ "Media Guide 2011/12: Records & Statistics" (PDF). Women's National Basketball League: 142. Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 March 2012. Retrieved 23 January 2012.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

https://web.archive.org/web/20120318214857/http://www.wnbl.com.au/fileadmin/user_upload/Media_Guide/2011_12/Team_Profiles/10041_BASKAUST_MEDIA_GUIDE_2011-12_WNBL_BACK.pdf

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[history-1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "History of the WNBL". Women's National Basketball League. Archived from the original on 1 December 2011. Retrieved 23 January 2012.

[media_guide-2] "Media Guide 2011/12: Records & Statistics" (PDF). Women's National Basketball League: 142. Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 March 2012. Retrieved 23 January 2012.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

[1]

[2]