Mark Radford’s mind all but resembles a filing cabinet.
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He recalls just about every single state juniors that have been guided under his watch through to the national level.
The Basketball Tasmania coach mulls over the thought and says the under-18 batch this year is going to be up there with the best of them.
But the state boys and girls have their work cut out to equal the 2018 semi-finalists.
“So the strongest overall group was the under-18 boys I had last year,” Radford said.
“You can probably go on results and theirs is top four.”
“The under-20s that are away were a top-six finish two years ago to compare.
“From a girls’ standpoint, this is definitely one of the strongest groups ever.
“Part of their strength has just been their commitment.
“They have stayed in the programs for a long period of time, so they have that continued experience.
“They are a very connected group, their strength is their shooting, so I know they will put in a lot of work to be at that standard at nationals.”
Radford looks through the manila folder of his memory and quickly finds the 2016 group led by Taylor Mole that included ex-Tornadoes guard Bec Abel as a benchmark.
Now he can visualise a team this year with greater depth, casting off the names Sharn Hayward, Aishah Anis, Micah Simpson, Jess Johnston and Zoe Crawford.
“These players have been around BTAS programs for a long time, they’ve had some Torns experience and had other senior women’s experience,” Radford said.
“This is not me saying they should perform; it’s them saying they should perform.
“That’s just a positive thing of having real healthy expectations and it has been born out of work they’ve done, not out of false confidence.”
His fingers flick rapidly quicker still, pulling out Sejr Deans, Reyne Smith, Jackson Lowe and Taran Armstrong.
They’re all no brainers.
“I just expect those guys to perform,” Radford said.
“They have got a lot of experience, they have played against men in Tasmania, nothing really should be a surprise to them and they go in healthy, have done the work away from practice, then they should perform.”
Radford loves imparting his basketball smarts on teens and watch them grow.
But ahead of the under-18s Kevin Coombs Cup set down for Townsville in April, the coach issues out a warning.
“This group is a very new group – we have guys that have been in programs for just on 12 months,” he said.
“That makes a massive difference considering some have been doing the same stuff for five years compared to those who come in and have to perform at nationals.
“But that’s the strength of our development programs.”