Dandenong Rangers (NBL1 South)

Club history

The Dandenong Basketball Association was founded in 1959. In 1981, the Rangers joined the South East Australian Basketball League (SEABL) as a founding team, claiming their first SEABL title in 1985 and the East Conference crown in 1986. A women’s side was established in 1984 as a charter member of the Women’s Basketball Conference (WBC), winning that league in 1989. When the WBC merged into the SEABL, the women’s team entered the inaugural SEABL women’s season in 1990. They went undefeated in both 1990 and 1991, capturing back-to-back SEABL championships and consecutive ABA National titles. After the 1991 season, the women’s team left the SEABL, as the Dandenong Rangers WNBL squad debuted in the Women’s National Basketball League in 1992. A new SEABL women’s team was revived in 1994. The men’s team earned the East Conference title in 1997, the women won the league championship in 2001, and the men again took the East Conference in 2004. Following the 2004 campaign, the Rangers exited the SEABL and joined the Big V in 2005, with the men finishing as runners-up in their debut season. In 2006, the men won the Big V championship by sweeping the Sandringham Sabres 2–0 in the grand final series, while the women were runners-up after a 2–0 loss to Sandringham. Both teams competed in the 2006 ABA National Finals, where the men reached the grand final but fell 94–80 to the Geelong Supercats. The men repeated as Big V champions in 2007, again defeating Sandringham 2–0 in the finals, but lost 110–98 to the Cairns Marlins in the national final. In 2008, the men were eliminated in the Big V preliminary final. The Rangers returned to the SEABL in 2009. From 2010 to 2012, the women’s team won three straight SEABL championships, the first SEABL women’s side to achieve a three-peat. The men captured consecutive East Conference titles in 2012 and 2013, losing the 2012 SEABL grand final to the Albury Wodonga Bandits before defeating the Mount Gambier Pioneers for the 2013 championship. The women’s team won back-to-back SEABL titles in 2015 and 2016. In 2017, the men claimed the South Conference championship but lost the SEABL grand final to Mount Gambier.