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I should be on 6 points in your age of war era (I demand an outright win in at least one era ;))

Well spotted, fixed.

Well, since this is meant to be a history lesson, and I am bored, I may as well give a bit of a recollection of some of the seasons, starting with the 'stone age' (Obviously with a bit of a bias towards my own team).

Season 2 barely counts. From my quick count at the end of the season there were only about 6 real teams in the ABBL, and the rest bots. I only joined just before the playoffs, and got wiped out by a bot. That bot team was given to the Eagles, who then went on to win the title against another bot. Therefore after playing two games in the ABBL, the Eagles had a title. I expect this is a record.

Season 3 the Eagles were the best team by a clear margin. A couple of teams in the great 8 had better records, though I expect this was due to the differential between the conferences (none of the great 8 teams aside from Coolcats I even really remember, while there were a few big names in the big 8 such as Dire, myself and the Eagles), and a cup run for the Eagles. After overcoming a 1 point scare in the quarter finals against Dire, the Eagles smashed the Brisbane Lions in the final. On a personal level, I was again knocked out in the first round of the playoffs, this time against a real team.

Season 4 was were things started to get interesting I think. 3 of the 'big 4' that would dominate the big 8 for seasons to come started to flex their muscles - the Eagles, Dire and Avalon Jets. My own team struggled (having to go through a relegation series, because I couldn't figure out that rebounding actually was important), but would go on to join them in a couple of seasons. Some of the players we now see as all time greats started to show their game to - Darby Walters, Grigg and Gafa were three of the top four scorers, and other names like Lamar Nash and Robby Lacy also appeared on the leaderboards.

Yet again, the Eagles were probably the best team, despite Coolcats better regular season record. However, as happened quite a few times to the Eagles, they took an opponent too lightly in the playoffs. Back in those days, effort for the playoffs was the same as in the regular season. The Eagles TIEd in the quarter finals, Aussieroos Crunched, and the Eagles were bundled out by two points. Aussieroos again CT v TIEd in the semi finals, and made it through to the finals, where with shot enthusiasm they put up a valiant fight, but were downed by Coolcats. This started a bit of a trend of the big 8 teams bashing each other up, and getting the title pinched by those pesky great 8ers. I think this may have also been a bit of a trigger for the change to playoff enthusiasm...

Season 5 the Eagles started to come back to the back, and were trumped for top position in the big 8 by the Avalon Jets. In the great 8, some names like WA is a Dump and Doncaster Flames started to shine, and brought the conferences a little more even. From an individual player perspective, Darby, Gafa and Grigg were again the top scorers, while Lamar Nash had a great season, and dominated the MVP.

In the big 8, the Jets comfortably accounted for the Eagles in the conference finals. They would face Coolcats again, who showed themselves to be a class above by dominating Doncaster Flames in their final. Coolcats wiped Avalon in straight sets, though both were close games, to take the title again. My team again struggled, facing a relegation series again.

That is fantastic mllama and certainly taught me a few things. TIE vs CT in the playoffs, removing that was a great change.

Seasons 6 to 9 paint an interesting picture. In the big 8, the same 4 teams made the playoffs in the 3 out of the 4 seasons, and it would have been 4 out of 4 if Dire hadn't decided that he'd rather face Bell Park in round 1 of the playoffs, and went hard against Avalon in the final game of the season. In the great 8, WA and Coolcats made the semis every season. I made the semis every season during this period to, meaning that 3 out of the 4 semi finalists were the same.

Most seasons Bell Park "Richmond" Supercats were in 5th position to during this era. They would have comfortably been the 3rd best team in the great 8, but their bad luck in landing behind the big 4 meant that they perenially finished one spot out of the playoffs.

In season 6, WA was bundled out of the cup in the first round, which lead to him being a massive force in the league, and took out the great 8 title. The battle for the big 8 lead was a tight battle, but a one point loss to Dire late in the season saw me give up first spot to the Eagles, who were probably still the biggest force in the big 8, but only marginally so. This season possibly marks the most lopsided conferences in ABBL history. WA and Coolcats were class teams, but behind them, 9-13 was good enough for 3rd spot. On the other hand, 8-14 in the big 8 meant auto relegation. Tough gig.

Fred Davidson won the scoring title with probably his first truely dominant season (though he'd been a good player for a while, the depth on the Eagles probably limited his scoring a bit in previous seasons). Gafa was up there to, as was Will Thorton from Hadders Heros (Thorton probably not a name many would remember, but he was a scoring gun for a few seasons). Season 6 also marked the arrival of hte assist king, Kristian Kasper, who took out the assist title with 11.5apg. In the playoffs, the Fred and Dime combo of the Eagles accounted for Avalon then me, but HCA proved to much for the Eagles and Coolcats to overcome, with WA taking out his first title.

Season 7 was a pretty similar story, except this time it was Coolcats who took advantage of HCA and beat the Eagles in the finals.

Season 8 was probably the start of a subtle changing of the guard in the big 8. After dominating for so long, the Eagles would never make the semi finals again. That said, they probably were still the best big 8 team this season, but this was probably the last season they could claim to be so. This season also marked the Pancakes first reign in the ABBL, but it was short lived, with them being relegated straight away.

In the great 8, WA and Coolcats again battled it out. This time, despite being against HCA, Coolcats overcame WA to reach the finals. In the big 8, the Eagles again took top spot in the conference. As I mentioned earlier, the Eagles had a habit of taking it too easy in the playoffs, however. The Eagles faced the Wombats in the first round, with their star player, Grigg, out injured. The Eagles playoff normalled, rested Davidson, and paid the price (interestingly, only 4 times in ABBL history has a #4 seed knocked off a #1 seed, and on two of those occassions the #1 seed tanked it. The other time was Aussies win over me last season). In the semis Grigg was back, but was out of shape, and Dire didn't make the mistake of taking me lightly, making it through to his first ABBL finals. HCA was too much however, as Coolcats took it out again.

Season 9 probably marked the true beginning of the Wombats v BLS rivalry, as Avalon and the Eagles dropped off the pace slightly. Season 9 also saw a young bloke by the name of Rudolph Radford stuck his head up, though he wasn't enough to save his team from being relegated.

In the big 8, the Wombats and BLS made it to the semi finals. This time the Wombats were able to overcome HCA, and make it to their first playoff appearance. However, and injury to their best big man in the opening minutes of the finals series meant that they never really challenged Coolcats.

Great work, Yoda. Great way of viewing ABBL history...


@ Mllama....

...fantastic writeup! An absolute read for all in BB land interested in the history of not only the ABBL (our top league) but in the greats of this great game.

Can't wait for next writeup and I balled you both.

The pirate age continues! :D

It certainly does. Congrats again, Whitebeard. You are still the benchmark.

Personally, I put WB slightly ahead of Dire...then a bit of daylight...although there's probably a few good ones coming through that are flying under the radar.

Re Eagles: His first match in Oz was for the div 1 title against a bot! and collected a cool $1m for the effort! He got a huge first mover advantage. I remember him making many mistakes along the way, I just don't rate him as one of the greats.

Re Shoei: It seems so long ago, but back in the day he was bloody hard to beat, even with not so great ratings, maybe there was some truth to his 'hidden skills' theory.


Last edited by bryce_gibbs at 03/04/2013 14:44:55

Tend to agree with you re the Eagles - its hard to know how highly to rate him. He got a few big boosts - being gifted the first title, plus from memory he was a bit of a day trader. Plus he played a season in Italy before playing in the Australian league, so he had a season's worth of knowledge on all of us, which I think was pretty invaluable.

He really should have won more titles than he did, but as I suggested in my writeups, he had a nasty habit of taking teams too lightly.

Shoei gets underrated because he came across as not really knowing what he was doing. Can't argue with the results - though I tend to think that if he was in the big 8 he would probably have struggled to win a title. The fact that he never really had decent cup runs tends to probably hurt his legacy a bit to.

Excellent contributions by Bryce and Mllama, I am happy to have some of the all time greats giving their opinions.