Listening to Our Members: Addressing Key Questions

The 2025 Annual Meeting of Members brought forward important questions related to Ontario Basketball operations. Questions about coaching certification, about the Fair Play committee, about the equipment standards at our games and about whether our ranking systems produces fair outcomes. We appreciate these questions as they reflect a membership that cares about the integrity of the sport we all love and serve. We want to address each of them directly.

Coaching Certification 

We were asked whether Ontario Basketball has the capacity to certify the coaches our system requires. The short answer is yes. Over the past two seasons, we have re‑established and strengthened Ontario Basketball’s province‑wide coaching certification system. Today, we have 10 certified Learning Facilitators and 23 certified Evaluators across the province, with 5 more evaluators currently in training. Since certification became mandatory, more than 1,300 coaches have been trained at the Learn to Train level, an incredible signal of buy-in from the membership. As more coaches complete this stage, we are now seeing increased participation at the Train to Train level as well, with more than 400 coaches trained to date. To support continued growth and accessibility, we are also working with Canada Basketball to expand online delivery options for coaching clinics. 

But certification doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It happens in gyms, in communities, in club facilities. Ontario Basketball provides the facilitators and evaluators. We need affiliated clubs to partner with us to host and run the clinics. That partnership is what makes the system work and we are grateful to the many clubs across the province that have already recognized this importance and have helped push forward this important initiative. If your club hasn’t hosted yet and wants to, we want to hear from you. 

In the next few weeks, we will be posting on our website the following: how many coaches still need certification, where our facilitators and evaluators are, what clinics are scheduled, and where we need more hosting partners. 

Certification exists to protect athletes. But we do want to be clear, enforcement is not meant to be punitive. Removal of teams is our last resort after exhausting all communication with a team. With that said, we continue to work with clubs to help them reach compliance even past posted deadlines. We would rather help a coach get certified than pull them off the bench.  

Fair Play 

A member raised a question about how disciplinary decisions are made, who has the authority to make them and how they are communicated. Those motions did not pass. But the concerns behind them are valid and have not gone unheard. 

We have met with the Fair Play Commissioner. We are conducting a thorough assessment of how the current framework operates, where it works, where it falls short, and where the gaps are in documentation, process, and authority. Before next season, we will implement reforms that include clearly defined roles and authority for the Fair Play Commissioner, a documented process for appeals, written record-keeping and notification protocols, and safeguards to ensure that no disciplinary decision is altered outside of a compliant.  

Shot Clocks 

The membership directed us to account for the portable shot clocks Ontario Basketball has purchased since 2022, including their location, condition, and how host sites meet required equipment standards. This inventory work is underway and we are also committing to buying additional shot clocks to have in our inventory to better support host clubs.

Maintaining the standards of our sanctioned games matters deeply to us. We hold ourselves and our host partners to a high standard and every weekend we aim to get it right. When equipment fails or something falls through at the last minute, we know that affects teams who have shown up expecting an OBA standard sanctioned game and that’s not acceptable to us either. What you signed up for is a quality OBA experience and we intend to deliver it. We will keep working closely with our hosts and taking the coaches feedback seriously and doing whatever it takes to make sure every team gets the experience they deserve. 

Basis Points 

A motion submitted and passed by a member told us the Basis Points system produces unfair outcomes. Through our internal review, we had already identified concerns that forfeits distort rankings and that scheduling order can impact competitive outcomes, concerns that were echoed by the membership. 

Rather than patch the system with a normalization formula, we intend to remove Basis Points altogether beginning next season. We believe this goes further than what the motion asked for and more effectively solves the problem at its root. 

For this season, we are reviewing current standings to determine whether any correction is warranted. If a clear disadvantage exists, we will act. We will not introduce a mid-season change that creates more problems than it solves, but we will not ignore an inequity that can be fixed now either. 

Looking Ahead 

We will continue to keep members updated as this work progresses. Two Town Halls are planned for June 20 and October 17 (locations to be confirmed) as opportunities to come together and discuss. And finally, as part of the ongoing review, additional meetings will also be scheduled with the Fair Play Commissioner and Committee members. If your club has questions, concerns, or ideas, please reach out. 

Thank you for your continued commitment to basketball in Ontario. 

Yours in Basketball,
Mike Barbin
VP, Basketball Operations