3x3 Quest Tour hotly contested as top talent wins South Auckland leg

The third leg of the 3x3 Quest Tour has been claimed by some familiar faces to the basketball circuit, including a New Zealand 3x3 representative and a New Zealand Breakers development player.

Team Flying Kiwis won the final 19 to 15, taking their revenge against team Briggs. The last time these two teams met on the Tour in December, Briggs knocked out the Flying Kiwis in the playoff rounds. They went on to be runners up at the North Shore leg.

The Flying Kiwis may have had the upper hand this time after drafting in Mitchell Newton. Better known a development player for the New Zealand Breakers and a member of NZNBLs Southland Sharks. Newton claimed victory with 3x3 regular Rory Fannon, who most recently represented New Zealand at the 3x3 Asia Cup in the Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia in October 2017. The 30 year old Fannon is also ranked as the Number One New Zealand player on play.fiba3x3.com with 231000 ranking points, which is FIBAs global 3x3 platform.

Newton and Fannon were helped by the rising Dominique Kelman-Poto who is back from College in the US, and Karl Magon. The Flying Kiwis have been unlucky not take out previous of the legs of the tour, having been threatening a podium finish in previous events.

Fannon has been impressed with the level of competition on this years Tour and noted the effect its had on their team.

"Each year were trying to get better as team. This year is probably the strongest group weve had. Having Mitch Newton from the Breakers means we just need to put a good supporting cast around him.

"3X3 is definitely on the rise in New Zealand, today there were a number of really competitive teams which means the standard is good."

The victors of Week Two, The Den, struggled at Bruce Pulman Arena this weekend. The Den was without their NZNBL big man and former Tall Black BJ Anthony, leaving Marco Alexander, Jaylen Gerrand and Patrich Bolstad to play all the minutes on court. Although they managed to beat the Flying Kiwis in the early rounds, they were knocked back by team Briggs (13 - 18) and team NLBNZ rostering Denis Xhiha, Lis Haraqia, Myles Pinono and Yaran Ghassemi.

Leg Ones winner, team PM (Precision Movement) has struggled to find their first weeks form against The Den, Briggs and the Flying Kiwis, losing all of those games in South Auckland by close margins.

These four teams have established themselves as the Auckland regions contenders for the overall title. The last leg of the tour is the 3x3 Quest Tours World Masters Qualifier, which will be held at The Cloud in Auckland on 10 March 2018. The winners of that will win a trip to Japan to compete in the FIBA World Tour Masters, where they will compete against some of the top 3x3 professional players in the world. Yet despite playing in two finals, a qualifying title is still eluding team Briggs. They may have to travel out of Auckland if they want to claim an all-important qualification spot.

Perhaps Briggs will travel to Hamilton for the fourth leg this Sunday. After that the tour heads south, with stops in Wellington, Invercargill, Dunedin, Christchurch. Or Briggs might wait for the last Auckland stop that offers qualification at Trusts Arena in Auckland on 3 March. All the winning teams from the 2017/18 tour will meet at The Cloud with their eyes on the big prize, vying for a chance to experience FIBAs professional 3x3 circuit as a wild card team in Japan.

The 3x3 Quest Tour is also open to all different ages, grades and genders. It is free to enter. Go to http://nz.basketball/3x3-Quest-Tour for more information.

To register

Players must register on play.fiba3x3.com, where they can enter events, track their results and compare their ranking to their friends and other 3x3 players internationally. Its essential that all players have an official play.fiba3x3.com profile when they play in the Tour. Creating a profile is easy and only takes about three minutes. Once youve created a play.fiba3x3.com account, respond to the confirmation email, register for an event, and youre ready to play.

Final Results of the South Auckland leg of the 3x3 Quest Tour (week three)

Open Mens Winners - Team Flying Kiwis

- Karl Magon

- Dominique Kelman-Poto

- Mitchell Newton

- Rory Fannon

Open Mens Runner Up - Team Briggs

- Reuben Fitzgerald

- James Moors

- Scott Telfer

- Thabo Manyere

U19 Male - Team Blocboyz

- Vlad Zenin

- Carew Chamberlin

- Czar Montecillo

- Kees Grootjans

U17 Mixed - Team LMC

- Myshaan Komene

- Caleb Smiler

- Livi Hirawani

Junior Mixed - Knights West

- Riana Matiseni

- Gabriel Remedios

- Ryan Fabian

3X3 Quest Tour Schedule:

- Sat 9 Dec 2017 | Tauranga | Mount Maunganui Netball centre

- Sat 16 Dec 2017 | Auckland - Takapuna | North Shore Events Centre

- Sat 20 Jan 2018 | Auckland - Mangere | Mangere Otahuhu Netball Centre

- Sun 28 Jan 2018 | Hamilton | Garden Place and Civic Square

- Sat 10 Feb 2018 | Wellington | Odlins Plaza

- Sat 17 Feb 2018 | Invercargill | Stadium Southland

- Sun 18 Feb 2018 | Dunedin | The Octagon

- Sat 24 Feb 2018 | Christchurch | Hagley Park Netball Courts

- Sat 3 Mar 2018 | Auckland - Henderson | Trusts Arena

- Sat 10 Mar 2018 | Auckland - CBD | The Cloud-

- This event will be both a normal 3x3 Quest Tour event, except for the Open Men's grade - only Open Mens grade teams that have qualified through previous tour events can play in the World Tour Qualifier Final at The Cloud on 10 March.

More information:

- www.basketball.org.nz/3X3

- play.fiba3x3.com

- Follow the event on Basketball New Zealands Social media accounts: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter

- This story has been automatically published using a media release from Basketball New Zealand