Well, after a season of highs and lows, high expectations and disappointment, here's a season wrap of Big V 2013.

It's been an issue for a number of years within the Club that Big V tends to live a little in the shadow of our WNBL program. But with the men's team this season gaining a lot of attention and the positive move of all Boomers Big V home games being located in one place at TLC, it was great to see the home crowds bigger than they have been for many years.

Every Club at the Big V Championship level has to figure out the balance between developing local talent and seeking external recruits and we are no exception. The planets aligned for our Champ Men's team, with Coach KB able to build a star core roster, but then injury and circumstances conspired to mean the title shot fell short in the semi finals. Our Champ Women's team went the development path and were competitive, but lacked that key player or two to compete with the import or WNBL player led teams.

State Youth Championship Women

Our Youth Women made finals in 2012, but with a number of players "retiring" or stepping up to champ, it was a new look and very young Boomers team that took the court.

As would be expected for such a young team, there were some variable performances across the season, with some great wins against quality opposition, but some weeks where things just never got going.

To the girl's credit, they just snuck into finals but were outclassed by the Dandenong Rangers in an elimination final. The Rangers as raging hot title favourites looked unstoppable, but ended up going down in the title game in a massive upset to the Sandringham Sabres.

Gemma Fyffe had a great season in her first full year in Youth Championship, while Ellie Locke was also solid. Amelia Smith had some great games both in scoring and on the boards, while Annie Sexton showed her future potential. Hopefully the core of this team will stay together and suit up again in 2014.

Overall a pretty good season by our Youth Women and as a Club we continue to see this team as a key element in our pathways where our junior championship girls can step up and play Big V basketball as soon as they are ready, many while still also playing the junior ranks.

State Youth Championship Men

Our Youth Men team were looking for another season of consolidation, with the biggest problem being encouraging our junior boys to stay on and play Big V with the Club – competing with footy seems to be the biggest challenge in this regard.

So for 2013 it was great to see Will Hoole continue to develop and put in some huge games during the season. It was also fabulous to see the talent of big Reece McKenzie as he played some great early games, but unfortunately Reece was unable to continue for the back half of the season. Chris Nave and Jordy Little had to share the big man load and battled hard, often against much taller opposition.

As with the youth girls, the boys put in some great games, but consistency was an issue and the top teams in Youth Men were certainly a cut above the rest. Overall the season was solid, with the boys finishing a couple of games outside of finals.

As always, the key for next season and taking the next step will be about maintaining the core team, but finding one or two more guns to add into the mix.

State Championship Women

Our Champ Women started the season hoping to complete for a finals position, with a good blend of experience and youth. The rumoured addition of a former WNBL star would have made a huge difference, but did not quite come to fruition.

The girls ended up with a donut season – pretty good at either end, but with a big hole in the middle … and that middle run of losses told by seasons end, with the Boomers ending up just outside of the finals.

The revelation of the season was of course Funda Nakkasoglu, with Funda stepping straight into the starting point guard role in her first season of Big V and having a stellar season. Emily Simons was also solid before departing for college, while Loz Pearce contributed some strong games.

With the current state of the Champ Women competition, the reality is that the top teams either manage to attract a marquee player from the WNBL or invest in imports from US college. The decision for the Club is whether to continue solely with a junior development strategy, or to recruit and get this team up to being a strong finals contention.

There is some great home grown talent in our Champ Women's team and more on the way through, but you would suspect that one key outside recruit is needed for the girls to be challenging the top teams.

Another time will tell scenario.

State Championship Men

For season 2013, our Champ Men were certainly the star studded team. The planets aligned for Coach Kelvin Bowers as he was able to retain all star five member Corey Standerfer, then also added the highly rated Mike Rose along with local talent in Yusuf Qaafow and Vukas Pajic to join long time local stalwart Trev Latham.

The Big V community was further agog when it was revealed that marquee big man Adrien Sturt would join the Boomers for the second half of the season and a final jaw dropper landed when young gun Ben Simmons returned from the US to suit up and play with his newly found brother Standerfer.

At that point, the Boomers were pretty much a raging hot favourite for the title … but someone must have walk under a ladder or five because the Hoop Gods turned on the team and it all unravelled in a somewhat bizarre fashion. First up, Vukas Pajic unexpectedly had to move overseas for business reasons … then Sturt injured a hand in the second last game of the regular season and returned to the UK … then Simmons was called up for national tryouts and was absent for the critical semi final games 2 and 3.

As minor premiers and early title favourites, the boys still nailed the critical game 1 of the semi final series against the Ringwood Hawks with Ben Simmons still playing – but with Ben absent for the next two games, the depth started to look a little thin (no offence to the bench players). The boys looked out of sorts in game 2 as the Hawks levelled the series. In game 3, despite the limited rotations, the Boomer spirit still shone through as the boys fought it out to the bitter end only to go down narrowly in the final minute or two.

In the end, it was just not to be … the boys were no doubt devastated with the semi final outcome, but that's basketball … given other comments in this wrap on the nature of Big V Championship teams, who knows what season 2K14 will bring for our Boomers team, in particular at the Championship level.

So we bid farewell to the Big V season – and as for 2014, we will just have to wait and see.

Author/pic: Boomers Media - the author acknowledges that this article contains some elements of personal opinion.