Basketball: Hawks face Wellington Saints away before hosting Southern Huskies early in NBL

Hawks coach Zico Coronel will, no doubt, embrace the challenge of gauging his troop's worth early in the New Zealand National basketball League season this year. Photo / Photosport

The Hawks will begin this year's National Basketball League campaign with a baptism of fire, as it were, when they tip off with a double-header start in April.

The Zico Coronel-coached Hawke's Bay franchise team will hit the highway to the capital city first up to play beaten finalists Cigna Wellington Saints in a 7pm start at the TSB Bank Arena on Friday, April 12, before returning home to host 2 Cheap Cars Supercity Rangers in Napier the next day.

The Taylor Corporation-sponsored Hawks will then host the new kids on the Sal's Pizza-sponsored NBL block, the Southern Huskies from Tasmania, at the Pettigrew-Green Arena, Taradale, on Sunday, April 21, in a 3pm tip off.

The NZNBL comprises nine teams this year and the Huskies will play three games in four days in week two, starting with a double header against the Manawatu Jets on Thursday, April 18, and the Saints the following day before the Hawks clash.

The Hawks will table their playoff chances with a final round-robin match against the Huskies at The Silverdome in Launceston, Tasmania, on Saturday, July 13.

Ironically the emergence of the Huskies is tied up with the 2016 drive for a return of an Australian NBL franchise to the Aussie state since the demise of the Hobart Devils in 1996.

The Huskies' bid for an ANBL licence hit a judder bar in October last year after the franchise's bid to acquire the Derwent Entertainment Centre was rejected.

The ANBL also believed the potentially small TV audience and the cost of broadcasting games, as well as the lack of potential corporate sponsorship in the region, didn't help the Huskies' cause.

It consequently granted the ANBL licence for the 2019-20 season to the South East Melbourne Phoenix.

The Huskies switched tack, opening dialogue with the NZNBL in November. The Tassie franchise sees the national league here as an ideal platform for the ANBL and more challenging than other lower-tier state leagues in Australia.

All teams will play a home-and-away series involving 18 games across 14 rounds in the NZNBL this year, with the Final Four in late July.

Every Kiwi side will travel to Hobart to play on the Huskies' home courts at least once. The Tasmanians will face every NZNBL campaigner at least once, playing two games each time they travel to New Zealand.

The opening round of the NZNBL tips-off on Thursday, April 11, when the Manawatu Jets host the Rangers while defending champions SIT Zero Fees Southland Sharks will face the Wheeler Motor Company Canterbury Rams on Sunday, April 14. The Hawks will play the Sharks in round seven, in Invercargill, on Thursday, May 23.

The Jarrod Kenny-captained Hawks made the playoffs last year before losing to the Saints in the semifinal in Wellington with Coronel at the helm as their rookie head coach.