Teenager Jackson Ball scores 40 points for the Hawks in National Basketball League season opener

Jackson Ball, just turned 17, during his 40-point effort for the Big Barrel Hawks in the 112-78 NBL season-opener against new franchise the Indian Panthers in Taradale on Wednesday night. Photo / Kerry Marshall – Photosport

The successes of teenage Hawke’s Bay basketballer Jackson Ball just roll on.

He scored 40 points in the Big Barrel Hawks’ 112-78 win in the Sal’s NBL season opener against makeshift new league side the Indian Panthers in Taradale on Wednesday night.

It was just two days after his 17th birthday and he’s still a pupil at Napier Boys’ High School.

Ball scored just 47 points in his 14 appearances in his debut season last year (which included just one in the starting five), but this time the coaches gave him more than 33 minutes on court and his opponents gave him the space to land five from seven three-point attempts.

“A star is born,” a broadcast commentator rejoiced to a global audience at the end of the game at Rodney Green Arenas. “Jackson Ball, he came, he saw, he starred.”

It came on top of Ball’s debut as the third-youngest New Zealand Tall Blacks player ever, against Hong Kong on February 21, and his tournament Most Valuable Player success in last week’s Westside Blitz tournament in the South Island, when he averaged 25 points a game in the Hawks’ three wins in three games.

The Hawks, who have a home match again at the Rodney Green Arenas on Saturday afternoon against Manawatu Jets, didn’t have it all their own against the Panthers, who, despite missing most of a likely regular line-up because of visa issues and delayed arrival of players in New Zealand, led 24-18 at the end of the first quarter.

The Hawks turned the game midway through the second, leading 51-38 at halftime, and stretching the lead to 34 points (87-53), at the end of the third.

Four other Hawks scored in the double figures, headed by American import Darnell Cowart, with 19pts.

The Hawks were beaten in their Rapid League match against the Panthers.

Meanwhile, the return of coach Sam Gruggen for a second season with the Hawks will now be delayed until at least after the fourth game in the best-of-five Australian NBL championship playoff series.

An assistant coach of Illawarra Hawks, who also number three players headed to the Hawke’s Bay Hawks, tied the series with Melbourne United 1-1 with a 102-100 win in the second match on Wednesday night.

Doug Laing is a senior reporter based in Napier with Hawke’s Bay Today, and has 52 years of journalism experience, 42 of them in Hawke’s Bay, in news gathering, including breaking news, sports, local events, issues, and personalities.