BASKETBALL NT ANNOUNCE CHANGE TO U20 REPRESENTATIVE TEAMS

Basketball Northern Territory are pleased to announce a collaboration with Basketball ACT for the 2024 and 2025 Under 20 Australian Championships. The agreement between the two organisations will see the U20 teams play under the one "Territories" banner at the 2024 and 2025 Australian Championships.

Basketball NT High Performance & Development Manager Rod Tremlett said "this is a great opportunity for the Northern Territory to secure consistent opportunities for our athletes on the Basketball Australia pathway, particularly in those years where our representative numbers at the U20 age group can be under pressure due to athlete unavailability that can occur in this age demographic for a number of reasons. For those Northern Territory athletes who are dedicated to working towards potential collegiate, NBL1 and/or WNBL and NBL opportunities securing this arrangement ensures that regardless of the total numbers we have available, athletes will still have the opportunity to represent at the U20 Championships and access the significant interest that the Tournament attracts. in particular this will provide a great opportunity for our female athletes where at times it has been difficult to produce teams meaning that our available NT talent miss out on the potential opportunity to represent"

Basketball NT CEO John Mitchell said "This is a great outcome for local Northern Territory talent and we thank both Basketball ACT and Basketball Australia for there support and vision of this concept. As we have shown with the Darwin Salties NBL1 team we are very committed to continuing to provide as much opportunity as we can for our Territory athletes and this a further example of that."

Two rounds of trials, will take place, the first of which commences in Darwin this weekend. Those athletes selected in the first round of trials will then go on to the second round in Canberra where the final team and reserves will be selected.