Basketball: Reshuffle for Tall Ferns direction

By PETER JESSUP

Basketball New Zealand is not concerned at losing Tall Ferns coach Carrie Graf five months out from the Athens Olympics because it believes her old boss, Tom Maher, is a better-than-adequate replacement.

Graf, assistant coach to Maher with the medal-winning Australian Opals at two Olympics, signed with New Zealand when she was passed over for the top job.

But she has spent little time in this country because of prior commitments to the Phoenix Mercury in the WNBA in the United States.

Maher, who resigned from the Opals post after they gained silver under his leadership in Sydney and a bronze in Atlanta, has already been working with the Tall Ferns in camp at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra this week.

The players were unaware of the coaching change until yesterday, when all the pieces fell into place. Graf resigned to take up another, as yet unidentified job, believed to be in the US.

Given warning, BBNZ had approached Maher who conducted some coaching clinics here last year and he was yesterday confirmed in the post and will guide the Ferns through two Olympic warm-up games against the Opals in Canberra next week.

Assistant coach Kirsten Daly is to continue under Maher.