The Horsham Hornets will slot into the newly formed fourth conference alongside teams from Bendigo, Castlemaine, Kyneton, Maryborough, Mildura and Swan Hill.

Horsham Amateur Basketball Association president Owen Hughan said the move would present an unknown challenge.

“You don’t really know what to expect from the other teams until you come up against them,” he said.

“Mt Gambier was a really strong team in the south-west division and we might not face teams much tougher than them. Bendigo and Mildura should be tough opponents.”

The change to the league’s structure from three conferences to four was carefully worked through.

“It’s easy to be wary of changes when they are first made but a lot of these thins turn out for the better,” Hughan said. “We just go in there to give our kids a chance of playing a higher level of basketball and we hope that then strengthens our own competition.”

The Ararat Redbacks will also return to the CBL this season. The club will field men’s and women’s teams in the South West division.

Ararat Basketball Association president Donna Dunmore said it was exciting to return to the competition after many years without a team in the league.

 "We are very excited. We have averaged 10 boys at training so far as well as some apologies, which is promising,” she said.

"So we will end up with a squad of around 20 which gives us flexibility week to week. We had six train for the women's team, but we are still looking for other women to join if they are interested.”

Dunmore said it was important for future Ararat basketballers to have somewhere to play the game at senior level.

“The good thing is it’s somewhere the kids can play without having to leave Ararat,” she said.

“It is really important to have the team so young players have a local senior team to aim for as well.”

Steven Cronin will coach the men’s team while Ian Johnston will be in charge of the women’s team.

The Ararat side effectively replaces the Stawell Wildcats, who will not field teams this season due to a lack of numbers.

Wildcats vice-president Richard Hackwill said the decision was not made lightly.

“It came down to a numbers factor,” he said.

“We have a lot of players that are at university, so for them, the season starts just as they are getting into their exam period. The timing of it all makes things difficult. We have also lost four to five CBL quality players in the last few years which doesn’t help either.”

Hackwill said options remained for juniors at Stawell. 

“We will be looking forward over the next 12 months with the juniors that we have to develop and get them closer to the CBL level,” he said. “We will send them to various tournaments over the next few months to keep getting them as much experience as possible.”