Basketball: Dream start for Te Arawa

Te Arawa mixed team player Manaaki Vercoe (with ball), in action at the National Maori Basketball Tournament yesterday. Photo / Andrew Warner

Te Arawa's senior teams have got off to a perfect start at the National Maori Basketball Tournament in Rotorua.

The Te Arawa men's team, women's team and mixed team all had wins in their opening matches.

The national tournament started yesterday morning at the Energy Events Centre and runs until tomorrow, with 89 teams and almost 1000 players competing.

In their opening games, the Te Arawa men's team beat Ngati Porou 100-64, the women defeated Waikato Tainui 49-40, and the mixed team crushed Ngati Toa II 69-45.

All three home teams played one more match last night with pool play continuing today. Finals are played tomorrow.

Te Arawa men's team coach Mark Elers said he was happy to get a first up win yesterday.

"Yeah, really happy. We have only had a handful of practices to prepare and implement a game plan," he said. "Our game plan was to run and run and run and we did that well and got the win."

The men's team boast a lot of young talent this year with four players still at Rotorua Boys' High School.

Elers said the goal for the rest of the tournament was to go as deep as possible and just learn as they go.

"We are just trying to learn, this is the basis of our CBL [Conference Basketball League] team from Rotorua, so we are using this as a pre-season tournament," he said.

"And hopefully we can go as deep into the tournament as possible."

Teams represent their iwi or waka at the nationals and compete in the men's, women's, mixed, Special Olympics grades and age-group grades (9-and-under, 11-and-under, under-13, under-15, and under-17).

The defending champions in the men's division are Waikato and the defending champions in the women's division are Waitakere.