Often the ugly sibling to its NBL1 counterpart, the State League will be circled more times this year on the usually packed basketball calendar.
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Not because of the glitz of any imports, but Tasmanians being drawn back to possibly watch North West Thunder, Launceston Tornadoes and Hobart Chargers return back to centre stage in a new role.
It will be the state's first competition since NBL owner Larry Kestelman nodded his approval for Tasmania to become the 10th club during February's announcement.
So the attraction of having three NBL1 clubs - two male, two female sides - to bridge the gap between seasoned regular teams and Basketball Tasmania high-performance teenage entrants will bring the standard to a new level.
Basketball Tasmania boss Chris McCoy said the invite to the Thunder, Tornadoes and Chargers is nothing new.
"It's something we will be floating to everyone this year, including the teams, about the NBL1 clubs," he said.
"If you think of the women's competition where we have our high-performance side, which are the young, talented 15-17 year-old girls, well then the Tornadoes are going to be more the 18-22 year-old team and will come against experienced teams like Hobart Phoenix."
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It was this year's cancellation of the NBL1 that encouraged Basketball Tasmania to switch its late season and fill the vacant dates after following its regional club leagues.
"We would certainly look at extending the dates and bring them forward too from our original calendar. I think if we start around about late July-August, we are able to start when it would be perfect timing," McCoy said.
Avoiding the coronavirus pandemic proposes to extend numbers of games from between four to seven for women and men to 10 to 14.
The preliminary games and the finals series have also been played in Devonport, Hobart and Launceston over three split weekends.
But McCoy was keen to revert back to the traditional home and away schedule for the first time since 2016.
"It has worked well as a central venue format over a few years in a busy calendar, but we have a unique opportunity to make this league more significant," he said.
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Andrew Mathieson
The day I realised I wasn't good enough to play for St Kilda or be the No.1 spinner for Australia was when I realised journalism was the closest I could come to follow my passion for sport. And it's not just about the scores for me. It's the back story behind the game.
The day I realised I wasn't good enough to play for St Kilda or be the No.1 spinner for Australia was when I realised journalism was the closest I could come to follow my passion for sport. And it's not just about the scores for me. It's the back story behind the game.
