Perth Voice Interactive

BEING a wildcard entry for the U18s championships at this week’s HoopsFest, the Binar Indigenous Team know any victories will have to be hard-earned.

With a place in the WA Basketball League just edging nearer after a decade of dreaming, founder Adam Desmond says his young players rarely get an opportunity to play in competitions of this calibre.

Adding to the challenge, seven of the club’s top boys will be playing for their own WABL teams, but Mr Desmond says that’s given him an opportunity to offer a spot to some younger players and others from the regions.

“So it’s more opportunities for Indigenous kids to be playing basketball at this level, so that’s the silver lining,” Mr Desmond said.

But he says they’ve fared a little better with the Binar girls and he’s hopeful there might be an upset or two along the way.

Binar (the Noongar word for meteor) started in 2011 with just six kids playing under Mr Desmond, but has grown to include complete sports, culture and leadership programs.

This year for the first time, they ran a full league competition in the City of Swan with a 58 per cent Indigenous participation rate, which Mr Desmond says was born out of Binar’s core mission of removing the barriers to participation Aboriginal kids often face, as well as a commitment of inclusiveness.

“We had our grand finals this weekend, and then we’ll run another summer season, and that’s a big part of being able to qualify for a WABL place,” he said.

Mr Desmond said there was a lot of excitement amongst his young players, as they hadn’t been guaranteed a place and he wasn’t sure their application to play would be accepted.

He said after speaking to HoopsFest organisers he initially thought about taking kids along to watch some of the games, but decided to go the whole hog after deciding there’d be long-term benefits from playing and gaining visibility for Indigenous sports.

HoopsFest is Australia’s largest basketball festival and will see Perth host every first-round game of the NBL, the pre-season competition for the Women’s NBLA plus the Under 18s championships. 

There’ll be a festival of music, entertainment and street basketball at Forrest Place from September 19 – 22, while those special folk who love to queue for the latest sneaker release can have them all in one place at Sneaker Fest at RAC Arena on September 21/22.

WA tourism minister Rita Saffioti said WA had a long and proud basketball history which made securing HoopsFest special.

“It’s yet another opportunity to showcase Western Australia as an incredible tourism destination and a leading host of major events,” Ms Saffioti said.

For more information head to hoopsfest.com.au

by STEVE GRANT