Basketball: Rising star on twin path

Thomas Abercrombie

Westlake Boys High basketballer Thomas Abercrombie is following in the big footsteps of Tall Black Kirk Penney, the Junior Tall Black yesterday accepting a scholarship deal with Washington State University.

Abercrombie, 18, is deputy head boy and captain of the volleyball team at Westlake and still sitting exams at the same school where Penney was deputy head boy and captain of the volleyball team before he went to college in the United States.

It was former North Harbour coach Tony Bennett who plucked Penney from obscurity and sent him to Wisconsin, where Bennett's dad Dick was coach. Now Dick is coach at Washington State.

Abercrombie has long been mentioned as a rising star and continues to prove that prospect with good scores for the JTBs in recent tournaments against teams from Russia, the USA, China and Australia.

He was brought into the Tall Blacks camp last year ahead of the Oceania series with Australia, not to play, but because everyone knows he should make that level and the experience would be valuable.

He joins Craig Bradshaw who is at Winthrop University and Wellington's Callum McLeod as Kiwis in the top level of the States' programme and several others are at second-string colleges.

Abercrombie said he had been talking to Washington State since January this year.

The US universities are supposedly not allowed to scout talent at off-season internationals. But his stats would have been enough to convince them the point/shooting guard has it.

"I'll be shorter in comparison to them [US players]," he said. He's 1.96m.

Penney was recovering from injury at the time and the two spent time talking on the bench as they watched. "We shared experiences, he gave me lots of advice, what the people and the training and the level of competition is like [in the US]. I'm looking forward to talking with him again."

Abercrombie has a four-year deal that includes all accommodation and academic fees.