Knox Raiders is a member club of the NBL1 South based in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a metro ...

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

. The club fields both a men's and women's team. The club is a division of Knox Basketball Incorporated (KBI), the major administrative basketball organisation in Melbourne's eastern suburbs. The Raiders play their home games at the State Basketball Centre.

Club history

Knox Basketball was established in 1965 to provide youth from the

City of Knox The City of Knox is a local government area in Victoria, Australia in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. It has an area of and in 2020, Knox had a population of 165,147. This municipality is one of only a handful that survived the widespread mu ...

with a sporting and social infrastructure to develop and promote personal, team and social skills in a sporting environment. Founded by Alf Stevens, Alice Jago and Heather Kemp, it began as an after school competition at the Mossfield Avenue Facility,

Ferntree Gully Ferntree Gully is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, at the foothills of the Dandenong Ranges, 30 km south-east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Knox local government area. Ferntree Gully re ...

in 1974. In 1980, its headquarters moved to the 3 court facility in Park Crescent at

Boronia ''Boronia'' is a genus of about 160 species of flowering plants in the citrus family Rutaceae. Most are endemic to Australia with a few species in New Caledonia, which were previously placed in the genus ''Boronella''. They occur in all Austral ...

which was later expanded to six courts in 1989. In 1982, Knox's senior program was established, with a Raiders men's team entering the South East Australian Basketball League (SEABL) that year, followed by the women's team in 1990. In 1991, the Raiders men were South Conference champions and SEABL champions. The men won five more conference titles between 1994 and 2009, with 2009 also seeing the Raiders win the SEABL championship. The Raiders women meanwhile won their first SEABL championship in 1992, before claiming the SEABL-ABA championship double in 1994 and 1996. They next saw success in 2013 with the SEABL championship. In November 2014, Knox Basketball Incorporated withdrew its Knox Raiders SEABL teams from the 2015 season due to its dire financial position. The Raiders requested they remain a financial member of the SEABL with the intention of returning in season 2016. The SEABL retained the club's financial guarantee with the Raiders classified as a non-playing member of the league in 2015. In November 2015, KBI announced that their senior men's and women's teams would be playing in the

Big V Big or BIG may refer to: * Big, of great size or degree Film and television * ''Big'' (film), a 1988 fantasy-comedy film starring Tom Hanks * ''Big!'', a Discovery Channel television show * ''Richard Hammond's Big'', a television show presente ...

State Championship instead of the SEABL in 2016. In October 2018, KBI's Big V teams were entered into the newly-established

NBL1 NBL1 is a semi-professional basketball league in Australia, consisting of South, North, Central, West and East Conferences with both men's and women's competitions. Each conference is run by their respective state governing body, with the leag ...

for the 2019 season. The NBL1 South season did not go ahead in 2020 due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

References

External links

KBI's official website
{{NBL1 Basketball teams established in 1982 1982 establishments in Australia Basketball teams in Melbourne Sport in the City of Knox