Sport Basketball Ceased 2008 Continent FIBA Oceania (Oceania) | Founded 1965 Country Australia | |
Formerly South Eastern Conference
1965–1970
South Eastern Basketball League
1981–1987
South East Australian Basketball League 1988–1991
Continental Basketball Association
1992–1998
Australian Basketball Association
1999–2008 | ||
The Australian Basketball Association (ABA) was a second-tiered semi-professional men's and women's basketball entity in Australia which sat under the professional National Basketball League (NBL) and Women's National Basketball League (WNBL). The association incorporated five regional leagues – the Big V (Victoria), Premier League (South Australia), Queensland Basketball League (Queensland), South East Australian Basketball League (Southeast Australia), and Waratah League (New South Wales) in both men's and women's competitions.
History
The Australian Basketball Association's (ABA) roots can be traced back as far as 1965, when just eight clubs competed in the South Eastern Conference (SEC). The SEC continued for six seasons until in 1971, the Australian Club Championships gained pre-eminence.
In 1981, the SEC was reborn as the South Eastern Basketball League (SEBL) when the Australian Club Championships ceased to operate due to the rise of Australia's first truly national competition, the National Basketball League. The SEBL was divided into a South and East Conference format in 1986, a league that now consisted of 21 teams from New South Wales, ACT, Tasmania and Victoria. That same year, Queensland's State Basketball League was founded. In 1988, the SEBL was renamed the South East Australian Basketball League (SEABL), and in 1990, a women's competition was introduced. In 1992, the SEABL was renamed the Continental Basketball Association (CBA), and in 1994, the CBA expanded to a three-conference competition with Queensland's "North" conference merging with the South and East conferences. 1994 marked the first year in Australian state basketball league history that teams from outside the original south-east concept competed in an end of season national tournament.
1998 saw further expansion with the inclusion of a Central Conference from South Australia. South Australia's league had been running since 1957 before finally joining what was becoming a growing national competition. In that same year, the switch of NBL and WNBL seasons to summer enabled the CBA to offer professional players a showcase for their skills during the winter months. In December 1998, Basketball Australia took ownership of the CBA and renamed it the Australian Basketball Association. The competition was henceforth known as the ABA from the 1999 season onwards.
2000 saw the addition of an entirely new competition known as the Big V from Victoria, and in 2001, the Waratah Conference from New South Wales was included for the first time.
From 2002 to 2006, the champions of each of the five leagues and a number of wildcard entries competed at the ABA National Finals. This addition of a truly national ABA final series marked the dawn of a new era of national basketball competition in Australia. The ABA National Finals became known as the Australian Club Championships (ACC) in 2007, but following the 2008 ACC tournament, Basketball Australia's Competitions Commission took over the management of all state-based leagues and competitions from 2009 onwards.