Basketball: Junior Tall Blacks success highlights basketball's momentum

The New Zealand Junior Tall Blacks pose at Auckland Airport. Photo / Photosport

Last Saturday night the Junior Tall Blacks beat Australia in the final of the Oceania U18 Championships to win through to a first ever U19 World Championships appearance next year.

The moment was huge for the kids involved and the basketball community will celebrate the success but the flow-on effect might be even more profound.

The win highlights the growth of the sport in New Zealand. Basketball is enjoying unprecedented success at youth level with kids earning US college scholarships almost every week while the junior numbers continue to grow exponentially.

Basketball New Zealand chief executive Iain Potter says this success is certainly no fluke.

"It was a real buzz and it is still a buzz," Potter tells herald.co.nz.

"To put it in perspective it is only at the junior level but it does several things.

"Two years ago the Junior Tall Blacks lost to Australia on the buzzer at the same event. Last year we beat Australia in the round robin and lost to them in a close game in the U17 World Championships qualifying tournament and now this team has finally cracked the nut.

"To me it is more of an indicator of a talent bulge or talent movement. It is not a freak event or one-year cohort - I think when you fast forward five years we have got a pretty impressive depth chart.

"You hate to wish your life away but I can't wait for the next five years to start.

"There is a really impressive array of young men and women coming through the grades."

Basketball is seeing massive growth in the popularity stakes. The TAB turns over more betting activity than any other sport and by some margin while gyms are choc-full around the country with age group teams.

The Breakers success in recent NBL seasons and the emergence of Steven Adams in the NBA has got mainstream New Zealand paying more attention than ever before.

"We are blessed to have a sporting superstar personality like Steven in our sport," Potter says. "A lot of people are now talking about kids as being the next Steven Adams, which is just awesome."

Adams went through his development here in New Zealand at a time where there wasn't a huge amount of interest in the sport nationally. Commercially the sport was struggling and there wasn't a lot of financial help for Basketball New Zealand.

But Potter says some of those obstacles are slowly being removed and some good times are on the horizon as New Zealand moves from Oceania into the Asian confederation next year. That will result in more top level basketball being played in our own market and a better chance of qualifying for major global tournaments.

"I think we are starting to see little pin pricks of light at the end of the tunnel. We are starting to get a little bit more commercial support around some of our activities and more conversations with commercial organisations about basketball's potential.

"I think we will see that accelerate with our own NBL and women's championship go up a level over the next couple of years and as we move into Asia."