Basketball New Zealand

Queensland under-14 runners-up Southern Districts Spartans (Brisbane Courier Mail)

Alex Murdoch, Brisbane Courier Mail
In a move that has shocked the sport, the new Queensland under-14 girls basketball champions are from New Zealand.

In a move sure to send maroons everywhere red with rage, Basketball Queensland has allowed a guest New Zealand team to claim the state title, leaving the rightful champions - the Southern District Spartans - as runners-up.

To make matters worse, the winning team - PWP Waikato - had already been named NZ national under-14 champions before beating the Spartans 67-35 in their recent grand final clash.

Spartans general manager Allan Ladewig said the devastated Brisbane girls would now be forced to contest the Australian national club competition in October as the highest-ranked Queensland team, but without the title to back it up.

“I do think it is wrong that an international club team, that didn’t qualify under any of the selection criteria, can win our state title,” he said.

“I don’t know what Basketball Queensland was thinking.”

BQ chief executive Graham Burns has stood by the controversial decision, suggesting that while he did not expect everyone to understand, the organisation had been acting “strategically and in the best interest of the sport as a whole”.

He said Queensland had never won a national under-14 club championship and “we want to reverse this trend, hence our desire to invite and welcome better teams to our State Classics”.

“We need to constantly provide opportunities to challenge ourselves in order to improve,” Mr Burns said.

“If we remain isolationist it will make it more and more difficult to compete nationally as the better states have no issue with other states competing in their championships.

“In fact they embrace this concept.”

Mr Ladewig said while no one had a problem with bringing other teams into the competition, he knew of no other sport (or state) which allowed an outside team to claim a state title.

He said that, if a outside team or athlete won, the usual practice was to give a trophy to the winner as well as the first-placed Queensland team or athlete - with the latter entitled to the title.

“We’re really very disappointed for the girls - there were a hell of a lot of tears,” he said.

“But we’re not a sport that has a lot of democracy, so I guess nothing’s going to change.”