New Zealand: Rebuilding on solid bases…

Over the past eight years, the New Zealand Tall Blacks have become formidable international opponents, playing at the Sydney and Athens Olympics and the FIBA World Championships in Indianapolis and Japan.
 
One of the great strengths of the Tall Blacks program has been the consistency of personnel. But that has become something of a double-edged sword. While New Zealand has been well served by their leading players, the quest for consistent results has left little room for what happens next. The generation that carved out a worthy reputation is now in its 30s and coach Nenad Vucinic faces the task of retooling to maintain New Zealand's standing towards the 2010 FIBA World Championship. "We have been relying on the same players, in some cases, for more than a decade," says Vucinic. "The reality is we need to rebuild and it was going to be difficult for us whenever that happened … we chose this year."

Gone are veteran centre Tony Rampton and pesky forward Dillon Boucher, although not far in Boucher's case. He takes up a new role as video technician as he moves towards a coaching career. Point guards Mark Dickel and Paul Henare, who have monopolised that position since the new millennium, stepped aside, at least temporarily, to offer understudy Lindsay Tait a legitimate shot at the starting spot.

This rebuilding exercise should see the introduction of several emerging stars and some who have been on the fringes of national selection before. The Kiwis had hoped for their three biggest names to come back to set the tone for the newcomers. Skipper Pero Cameron and sharpshooter Phil Jones debuted for their country as teenagers in 1994. Jones announced at the start of June, however, that he was retiring from the National Team. The third big name is Kirk Penney. After roaming the globe, the excellent shooter comes off a very successful debut season in the Australian NBL to again challenge the best in the world. Much will now rest on center Craig Bradshaw, a great talent who is still finding his feet in the real world a year after leaving Winthrop College in the United States. With Boucher's departure, rebounding demon Mika Vukona will need to raise his game to international standard after establishing himself as one of the up-and-coming talents in the Aussie competition.

Their supporting cast remains something of a mystery. Incumbent Casey Frank now faces a challenge from former Duke University captain Nick Horvath for the one "naturalized" spot on the roster, while experienced NBL performers Brendon Polyblank and Ben Hill may benefit from the transitional nature of this campaign.

Vucinic was also faced with the need to assess the readiness of several contenders returning from US colleges. Which ones are good enough to contribute right now and which ones are sound investments for the future.

Do New Zealand have a dark horse for higher honours? Try exciting guard Everard Bartlett, who led all scorers in last year's World Student Games and amassed 50 points against China in the Emerging Tall Blacks' final outing of the tournament.

While the search begins for the next generation, the Kiwis must also keep an eye on the short-term goal of qualifying for the Beijing Olympics. In Athens, they have drawn arch nemeses Germany and African underdogs Cape Verde in their pool. Should they progress beyond that initial stage, they are likely to face World Championship silver medalists and hosts Greece or a Brazilian team featuring star players on the books of NBA teams or leading European clubs.

"Germany have always been a difficult team for us and Cape Verde are unknown now, but I don't think they will be unknown for long," says Vucinic.

"As we expected, it will be a tough road to qualify from a tournament that is as strong as the actual Olympics. There are plenty of teams there that, on their day, can win a world title."

How did they qualify?
2007 FIBA Oceania Championship, Final Round
2nd place, Silver Medal (1 W - 2 L)

Results

Aug-20th 2007   
*Australia b. New Zealand    79-67

Aug-22nd 2007   
*Australia b. New Zealand    93-67

Aug-24th 2005   
New Zealand b. *Australia    67-58