Basketball
Basketball in Ireland is one of the largest participation sports with over 300,000 people playing each year.
The game is played in primary and post primary schools and in universities. Club basketball competitions are played in parallel with the schools tournaments.
The post primary schools national competition is played by teams from almost 80% of the schools in the country and is the largest schools sport competition on the island of Ireland.
The pinnacle of the domestic game is the SuperLeagues for men and womens teams.
The national federation responsible for all facets of the game on the island of Ireland is called Basketball Ireland.
The sport is organised into eight regions as shown in table 1 opposite.
There is a regional board active in each region with representatives from all strands of the sport. Each region is supported by a full time regional development officer.
Schools
Basketball Ireland Post Primary Schools provides basketball competitions for registered member schools across the 32 counties. BI organise a Schools League for boys and girls that caters for 4 different age groups, U 19, U 16, first and second year, in three divisions - A, B and C. There is a separate Cup competition for boys and girls that caters for U 19 and U 16 in division A, B and C. Over 670 schools participate in competitions...
Primary School Players
79,000
Post Primary School Players
225,000
Colleges
The college section of Basketball Ireland boasts over 30 universities and 3rd level institutes taking part in the League. The League starts in the 3rd week of October and runs until Christmas. The League Finals take place in December.
At this tournament there will be the Semi finals and finals of Division 1, 2 & 3 of
the Men’s and Women’s competition.
The Fresher Tournament is a tournament that is run solely for the new comers to collegiate basketball. This tournament takes place in November.
The ultimate in Irish college’s basketball is the Intervarsities tournament where there are four days of great basketball, This year is the turn of the Dublin colleges to host and
the Varsities will be held from March 5th – 8th 2008.
International
Ireland is a proud and committed member of the European basketball community. At any given point in time, Ireland is represented by as many as ten National Basketball Teams from U15 to Seniors.
Ireland enjoyed mixed fortunes in their last European Qualifying campaign with the men and women showing plenty of promise.
The Senior Men's side were always set for a difficult assignment with just one of their three games being played at home. That came against the might of Switzerland, who had Chicago Bulls Star Thabo Sefolosha in their ranks.
The Bulls supremo managed to sink 23 points to give his side an impressive 86-58 win on the opening night.
However, despite losses away to Romania and Cyprus in their next outings the side showed enough to give confidence of bright days ahead.
Meanwhile, the senior women's side got their European campaign off to a flier with a 55-50 win over a fancied Norway side.
The Netherlands proved a tougher test away in the next encounter but a tight encounter went Iceland's way in the final outing at the National Basketball Arena.
SuperLeague
The SuperLeague is the premier competition in Irish Basketball. Twelve teams compete in the NIVEA for Men SuperLeague and Seven teams in the Women’s SuperLeague. The league season runs from October through March.
Season Structure 2007/08
NIVEA For Men’s SuperLeague
12 Teams split into Conference A & Conference B
Each team to play 21 games
3 against each team in their conference = 15
followed by 1 against each team from other conference = 6
Total = 21 games
Conference winners will be declared March 14/16
NIVEA For Men SL quarter finals
2nd Conference A v 3rd Conference B
2nd Conference B v 3rd Conference A
NIVEA For Men Semi Final and Final – Weekend of March 29th
(2nd Conference A v 3rd Conference B) v Conference B winners
(2nd Conference B v 3rd Conference A) v Conference A winners
Women’s SuperLeague
Seven teams participate in WSL. Each team plays each team in the league three times to give a total of 18 games for each club in a season.
Regular season winners will be declared March 14/16
Play-off’s
Set for March 22/23
1st v 4th
2nd v 3rd
Finals
Weekend of March 29
Each NIVEA for Men SuperLeague team are permitted two non-EU players on their team. You can keep up-to-date with all the latest news, fixtures, results and stats from the SuperLeague here.