Inside Wyndham’s journey to the National Junior Classic

Against all odds, Wyndham has continued to stun Victorian basketball and now they’ll face Australia’s best next weekend. We go inside their journey to get there.

It’s been a season of continuing to defy the odds for Wyndham’s under-18s basketball teams.

They first qualified for the Victorian Championship division — the highest competition level in the Victorian Junior Basketball League.

Now they’re set to test themselves against the nation’s best representative teams after qualifying for the National Junior Classic, which will be held on the King’s Birthday long weekend.

It’s a remarkable effort a team which doesn’t have any state representatives, nor do they have any players on state development pathway programs.

At one stage, they were ranked the 30th best under-18 boys team in Victoria.

Coach Ben Salter said it had all come down to the team “coming together well”.

“They’re a really strong group,” he said.

“And I think it’s important they’re good mates on and off the court. We’ve developed a pretty strong culture across this season and it’s held us in good stead.

“We didn’t really set any expectations at the start of the season. Unfortunately we haven’t had our best team on the court this year because of injuries and other issues, so hopefully we’ve got 10 healthy guys ready for next week.”

Wyndham's under-18s have qualified for the national junior classic.

Wyndham booked its place at Australia’s premier junior club tournament with a huge win against Nunawading last weekend.

Roor Akhuar scored 25 points and put on a huge defensive display while Brodie Salter was a consistent threat from deep.

Now preparing to kick start the final phase of the VJBL season against Sandringham on Friday night, Salter’s side is ready to take its game to another level.

“We speak about everyone taking their opportunities and playing their role for the team,” he said.

“It’s all about us just competing. We’ll be going into the Classic with an open mind and wanting to learn as much as possible.

“We get to compete against Victoria’s best every week and the boys have learnt a lot from that. Now to put that on a national stage is really exciting for our program.”