History of the League
In 1987 a competition called the Country Victorian Invitation Basketball League (CVIBL) was introduced for women’s teams from country Victorian associations. The CVIBL was the brain child of Bruce McDonald from Swan Hill, one of our truly creative administrators. For many years the League was conducted in an outstanding manner under the direction of Isobel and Frank Smith (also from Swan Hill).
In 1989 a Men’s Division of CVIBL was introduced and again was conducted in a professionally by a number of different administrators.
As a result, the CVIBL soon grew to include many Metropolitan teams and became becoming one of the true success stories of Australian competition basketball.
In 1991 control of the CVIBL was shifted from the BV Country Council and run by a separate body.The competition continued to grow and is now know as the Big V.
Never one to quit, Bruce McDonald conceived and introduced yet another competition, the Country Basketball Conferences (CBC) for the smaller associations in country basketball. To quote Bruce, the CBC was introduced;
‘To provide a quality, enjoyable competition conducted solely for the benefit of Country Victorian Basketball Associations, in a professional manner and at an affordable cost’
The BV Country Council again successfully managed the CBC, mainly for Gippsland associations, and in 2004 the North East Conference, was introduced. This in turn lead to a further name change, to the Country Basketball League (CBL).
