Our membership encompasses clubs and organisations from across Northern Ireland and boarder counties. 

• Club List  – BC Wolves, Belfast Star, Belfast Phoenix, Tyrone Towers, North Star Warriors, Hazelwood Hawks, Newry Fliers, UU Tigers, Limivady Lightning, Pontzypass Pumas, Omagh Thunder, Tyrone Towers, Drogheda Wolves, Letterkenny Blaze, Ballyshannon 88ers, Queens Basketball Club.  
• Friends of BNI –  The Courtside Collective, Sport Changes Life Foundation, Evolution Basketball, Peace Players, NI Cleveland Foundation, Belfast Bulls Basketball, NI 3×3 Community. 
• Team NI  – Team NI Performance Academy structure for Juniors and  Team NI FIBA 3×3 for Senior Men’s and Women’s.

Basketball NI is a member of the Northern Ireland Sport Forum, working with over 70 member NGB’s and organisations drawn from right across the sporting sector. 

The Process 

• Team NI Selection and Talent Identification

  Basketball NI worked with FIBA, Basketball Ireland Performance Committee  to help develop and identify coaches, managers and players suitable for selection for Commonwealth athway.  

• Basketball NI worked with Basketball Ireland, NI Commonwealth and Sport Northern Ireland in creating a pathway for players to develop at an international level of competition all while sitting under the national federation of Basketball Ireland. This was an extremely important step for Team NI in moving towards an Performance Pathway. 

• Selection of players had three areas of focus; 1. Playing internationally representing Ireland in the 5×5. 2. Players who played on Scholarship and/or professionally outside of Northern Ireland. 3. Players who had developed a high ranking on the FIBA 3×3 Profile platform and showed a high level of performance in the world of FIBA 3×3.

• Selection policy for NI Commonwealth Team Players eligible for competition must be eligible for a UK passport. Along with Players and Coaches had to follow the rules of NI Commonwealth UKAD & WADA Policy.

Background

During the Pandemic an Elite Performance pathway was identified and developed through FIBA 3×3 basketball.

In the avoidance of any confusion: 3V3 and FIBA 3×3 are two different types of basketball. 3v3 is a drill played with the game of 5×5 basketball and FIBA 3×3 is identified as a completely separate form of basketball. 

FIBA 3×3 made its worldwide competitive debut at the 2010 Summer Youth Olympics in Singapore. The competition featured 20 teams in both boys’ and girls’ categories. The competition was held at the Youth Space. Since then, world championships in both open and U18 categories are held regularly.

As Basketball NI sits under Basketball Ireland within the FIBA Federations Governance, Basketball Ireland and Basketball NI worked to create a pathway for Northern Irish born players to be able to compete at a Commonwealth level. This has now created a senior pathway for Team NI on an international level with in the Commonwealth. We are now also progressing this pathway to hopefully also compete at the Junior Commonwealth Games. 

It should also be noted that the Team NI still exists as being unique within Basketball Ireland’s governance. A small number of sall countries currently operates like Northern Ireland is a country, that sits within an all island federation that caters for all.

To date Team NI 3×3 Men’s and Women’s have came 2nd in Qualification rounds vs Scotland and Wales for the Birmingham Commonwealth Games in 2022 and Manchester Commonwealth Games Qualifying round for Glasgow 2026 with men coming 2nd and women coming 3rd. Men’s and Women’s team have competed in a number of individual events that they have been invited to events such as; Ball Out UK, Basketball Ireland International Test Series and the first NBA 3X event in London.

Basketball NI will continue to find competitions to grow and develop players, coaches and managers in this pathway over the coming years. We hope you will support #GoTeamNI at every opportunity.