FAQs

Please visit our Registrations page to see step by step instructions of how to join.

We are part of the McKinnon Basketball Association and therefore we have two seasons: Summer and Winter. The Summer Season is run over Victorian school Terms 4 and 1 and Winter runs over Terms 2 and 3. Generally speaking, registrations open approx. 8 weeks before the season start date. The next season (Winter 2025) will begin on Wednesday 30^th April for Over 35s and on the weekend of the 3^rd and 4^th of May for both the Junior and Senior competitions.

Registrations for the Winter season open on Wednesday 12th of March.

Registrations for the Winter season close on Sunday 6th April. Any registrations completed after this date will incur a late registration fee.

The Junior competition is run on the weekend. Games for boys aged U8-U18 are held on Saturdays with the younger teams playing the earliest games. Games for U20 Boys are held on Sunday afternoons. The girls’ competition is run on Sundays, again with the younger teams playing the earliest games.

The Senior competition is held on Sunday afternoon / evenings.

The Over 35s competition is run on Wednesday evenings.

Game times and locations vary week to week but locations include: Bentleigh Secondary, Brighton Secondary, GESAC, Carnegie Primary, Cheltenham Secondary, McKinnon Secondary and other schools within the municipality.

Our junior domestic competition consists of teams from U8-U18 (i.e. ages 5-17). Our senior domestic competition caters for anyone aged 18+. Our Over 35 competition is for players over 35 y.o.

*Please note, any girls born in 2007 / 2006 will need to register in the Senior Competition

If you already have a team to join, please reach out to the team manager as they will be able to get you set up.

If you don’t yet have a team to join, don’t stress! Please start by filling out the expression of interest on our registration page.

 We will then reach out with the relevant tryout information as well as a registration link.

Once tryouts are complete, we will allocate you to a great fitting #wolfpack and put you in touch with the team manager who will share all the relevant training and game day info etc.

*Please note: all new players will need to go through a tryout process, however if the dates don’t work for your family, please send us an email and we will find an alternate way to get you into a team.

Try-outs help us to ensure that we find the best fitting team for your child. We hold try-outs to ensure that each child has the best chance of enjoying their basketball experience. If the allocated try-out date is not suitable, please reach out to the club and we will organise an alternative way to assess your child’s skills and find them a suitable team.

The club holds tryouts before the start of every season so that we can find our new players a great fitting #wolfpack.
To get the relevant try-out information, please complete the expression of interest survey on our registration page.

Once finalised, we will reach out with the confirmed tryout info and well as a link that you can use to get registered with the club.

Start by coming along to one of our sizing events (see uniforms page for next available date). Once you have tried on samples and determined your correct size, please head to our online shop

Because uniforms are printed with player numbers, we cannot do exchanges for wrong sizes. It is therefore essential that you order the correct size! To ensure sizing is correct, we ask that you attend our sizing events where you will be able to try on our samples (see uniforms page for next available date).

To avoid clashes in player numbers amongst teams, all new players are allocated a number when they join the club.

Rep tryouts are run in August each year, please refer to the McKinnon Basketball Association’s website for all the relevant information: https://www.mckinnonbasketball.org/

We have lots of players who also play representative basketball for the McKinnon Cougars, however, we as a club, don’t have any influence over the selection process.

At this stage, the only challenge we face with introducing brand-new teams is that we, unfortunately, have very few training venues available to us. If you wish to register a whole team, please organise someone to take on the role of team manager and ask them to send an email to [email protected].

At this stage, we are not in a position to guarantee new teams a training venue until all existing teams have a training time confirmed. If you have your own training venue or are happy to see what’s available after existing teams have been allocated a training venue, then we are more than happy to welcome new teams to the club.

Teams must have a minimum of 8 players to be offered a training venue. During the registration period, our admin team will monitor registration numbers, any teams with less than 8 players will be allocated additional players following our tryouts. There is no maximum limit, however, we find that teams with more than 10 players find court time to be quite limited.

The standard fee to join the club is $340.

Once registrations open, there is a 10-day period where the early bird discount will apply. During this period, registration fees will be $305.

Any registrations completed after our registrations close, will incur a late fee due to the increase in administration required to get everything set up in time for the start of the season. During this period, registration fees will be $365.

The club offers the following discounts:

• Early Bird Discount: applicable to those who register within the first 10 days.
• Multiple Child Discount: 2^nd child – 10% discount, 3^rd+ child – 30% discount
• Coach’s Discount: Coaches are entitled to a 30% discount if they register a child.
• Concession Holders Discount: We also offer a hardship discount available to those who meet the relevant criteria.

If you think you are eligible for any of these discounts, please send an email to [email protected] to receive your unique discount code – please note, the early bird discount will be automatically applied during the two week period.

Please visit the Refunds and Payments page on our website under the Resources tab. You will need to complete the Wolves Refund Request Form and send this to [email protected] who will then process your refund.

Our aim is to have all teams full before the season starts – this means that we will only be adding to teams mid-season if they request to have an extra player or if they lose players due to injury etc.

As the name suggests, the team manager is in charge of managing the team and ensuring that all players are informed of any changes to the schedule or any rule changes. You will be the first person that we contact when we need to pass on information to the team or enquire about an incident. For more information regarding the team manager role, please visit our team manager info page.

The coach is in charge of training the team as well as instructing and looking out for them on game day. You will be our secondary contact if we cannot reach the team manager. For more information on the coaching role, and some handy tips, please visit our coach’s page.

The main training venues that we have include:

• Brighton Primary School
• Brighton Grammar School
• Brighton Secondary School
• Elsternwick Primary School
• Elwood College
• Caulfield Grammar School

Due to the ongoing challenges we face with sourcing training venues, the Brighton Wolves will only offer training venues to teams with at least 8 players registered to the team. Please *click here to see our training policy*

Whilst we try our best to accommodate every team’s request, we cannot guarantee certain training days or venues. Please sign up knowing that your team could be training on any night of the week.

Generally speaking, younger teams are offered the earlier training times. Teams that are continuing are often offered the same training space as the previous season, except in cases where the team is moving up an age group. In this case, the team will likely need to take a later training time to make space for younger teams to train.

We will endeavor to create a training schedule that meets the needs of all teams, however, we are quite limited with options. Once the training schedule has been set, we ask that your team commits to making this time and location work.

Training will not be held on public holidays, unless otherwise advised.

There are no games or training sessions during school holidays.

For the most part, there are no games on long weekends, but the club will send out an email to all team managers to advise them of any weekends that games are not going ahead.

Grading is completed throughout the first four games of the season. Your team’s division will be determined by the MBA. Team managers will be consulted to give feedback during the grading games, but ultimately, the MBA will have the final say to ensure a challenging, yet fair competition.

Some general guidelines for grading:

• If your team wins 6+ games during the season, they will generally move up
• When moving from top age to bottom age – generally drop 2 divisions
• When moving from bottom age to top age – generally go up 2 divisions

Grading games make up the first four weeks of the season. After this, your team will be placed in a division that the MBA feels is suitable for your team’s skill level. Once the grading has been completed there will be no changes to divisions, except for in extenuating circumstances.

Size 5 – All players in U8, U10 and U12

Size 6 – All Boys in U14, Girls / Women U14+

Size 7 – All Boys / Men U16+

• Matches will be conducted in two 18 minute halves with each game allowed two minutes warm up and two minutes for half time.
• To start the game, the referees will call 2 minutes, then 1 minute, then call for centres at which time the clock will start. Penalty points will be awarded for lateness – this includes coaches who continue to talk to players once centres have been called. For the second half the referees will call 2 minutes, then 1 minute, then call for centres at which time the clock will start.
• Time outs are two per half of 1 minute duration. Timeouts are not permitted in the last three minutes of the first half; but are permitted in the last three minutes of the second half, when the clock stops for every whistle.
• The clock only stops in the last 3 minutes of the second half, except when the referee calls a referee’s timeout. When this occurs the clock stops at that stage of the game.
• All games must start on time and any team not ready will be penalised two points per minute that they are late starting. The game cannot start until each team has completed their team responsibilities.

Throughout the grading period (first four games of the season) the MBA will release the fixture week by week – this is to allow for all the changes that are occurring. Once the grading is complete and all teams are settled into their divisions, the MBA will be able to complete the fixture for the remainder of the season, however this usually won’t be for at least 3 weeks post-grading.

Due to the size of the MBA and the huge amount of organization that goes into this competition, we ask that teams work their schedule around the games, however if there are extenuating circumstances you can email your requests to [email protected]. For the most part, the MBA cannot make adjustments to the fixtures once they have been published.

We are always keen to hear about circumstances that bring the game into disrupt however without a referee report it is very difficult to escalate. If there is something you wish to bring up, you can send us an email to [email protected]

The MBA have quite strict guidelines on fill in players, please refer to the by-laws (Pages 7-8) View PDF.

If your team needs to find a fill-in player, you can send an email to [email protected] who will put you in touch with the applicable team managers. You can then reach out to them to see if any of their players can help you out. Please note, we will only be able to assist with fill-in players up until 10am on Friday mornings.

Forfeits must be submitted at least 24 hours before game time. To submit a forfeit please complete the form using the following link: https://form.jotform.com/210878390799070

As a club, the only alterations we can make to player details is their player number. If a player’s number is recorded incorrectly in Play HQ, please send an email to [email protected] and we will make the required change. If there are issues with other player details you will need to login and make these adjustments under the ‘My Account’ tab. If you need any additional support, you will need to reach out to Play HQ support.

For U8s, U10s, U12s and U14s each player will receive a participation trophy, one player will receive the Coach’s Award and one will receive an MVP. For U16s the club will provide one Coach’s Award and one MVP. Towards the end of the season, we will reach out to team managers / coaches to find out who they would like to allocate the trophies to.