Basketball: Pressure goes on Tall Ferns

PETER JESSUP checks on the New Zealand women's basketball team's Olympic build-up.

There has been tension aplenty in the New Zealand women's basketball camp on Auckland's North Shore as the team build to their first pre-Olympic tests against Slovakia, with all players aware that not all will be at the next camp.

Of the 16 women in training, two will be dropped after the three-test series against Slovakia, which starts in Tauranga tomorrow before moving to Hamilton then Auckland.

Two others will be relegated to standby to cover injuries in a 12-woman Olympic squad.

Probably more nervous than most is double international Belinda Colling, who has not been able to train with the Tall Ferns because of a knee injury.

Colling lost her captaincy of the Silver Ferns yesterday. She is making a good recovery from surgery but is only just back to running and is short of fitness.

But coach Carl Dickel said Colling's Silver and Tall Ferns team-mate Donna Loffhagen had recovered from elbow trouble and had fitted into the camp well.

"One game seems to refresh both Donna and Belinda for the other and they both change really easily between the two," he said.

This tour is likely to be the only chance the New Zealand public will have to see the Olympic prospects in action.

All their later build-up games are overseas, though Basketball New Zealand is negotiating to have the Japanese women here.

The only definite engagements are a camp at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra, followed by a four-way tournament between the AIS team, the Canberra Cannons and Brazil, and a game against Canada at the Sydney 2000 Stadium at Homebush three days before the opening of the Games.

"We've had a productive time. I'm pleased with the attitude and the effort put in," Dickel said yesterday of the four days he has had to mould a competitive unit from a disparate group flown in from around the world.

All the players had been in previous camps and on tours so it was a matter of reviewing what had already been set down. The team plan was to go out to play an attractive, attacking style, and the work had concentrated on quality shooting and limiting turnovers, Dickel said.

The players have had sessions with Olympic team psychologist Gary Hermansson and have held coaching clinics at North Shore schools.

Part of the reason for that is to drum up a large and vocal crowd for the final test, on Saturday afternoon. The team need every possible advantage against Slovakia, the top European qualifiers for Sydney.

Dickel has seen tapes of the Slovakians playing recently and the Ferns saw them at a European tournament in 1998, but little is known about the touring team other than that they include five players taller than New Zealand's biggest, 1.88m Gina Farmer.

The Tall Ferns' oldest contender is American-based Leone Patterson, aged 37. The youngest is 17-year-old Lisa Pardon of Hamilton, a local league young player of the year for 1999. Four players have come from Australia, while Megan Compain returns after a year in the WNBA with Utah and the past season in Finland and Germany.

The 12 nations that have qualified are Australia, Brazil, Canada, Senegal, France and Slovakia (pool one) and Poland, South Korea, Cuba, the United States, Russia and New Zealand.

The Ferns play their pool opponents in the order listed, with a game every second day. Four teams will make it to finals.

Dickel said the New Zealanders would go out to compete every second they were on the floor "and if we do that we'll be competitive."

Tall Ferns: Diane L'Ami (Taranaki), Tania Brunton (Hamilton), Belinda Colling (Dunedin), Megan Compain (Finland/Germany), Rebecca Cotton (Wellington), Kirstin Daly (Taranaki, captain), Gina Farmer (Tasmania), Sally Farmer (Australia), Aneka Kerr (Victoria Country), Donna Loffhagen (Invercargill), Julie Ofsoski (Australia), Lisa Pardon (Hamilton), Nicki Thompson (Nelson), Leone Patterson (US), Jodi Tini (Hamilton), Leanne Walker (Hamilton).