Basketball: Tall Blacks start to regain faith

College student Isaac Fotu (right) has played a key role in the Tall Blacks' turnaround in Spain. Photo / Getty Images

After appearing to be down and out at the start of the week, the Tall Blacks are back to believing they can be world beaters again.

New Zealand will face Lithuania in the round of 16 at the Basketball World Cup in Barcelona on Monday morning, after sneaking through Group C in fourth spot. The Tall Blacks won their final two group games against Ukraine and Finland after losing their first three.

The Tall Blacks have failed to progress beyond the second round at the previous two world championships, falling to heavy defeats to Russia and Argentina, but coach Nenad Vucinic is bullish about his side's chances of advancing to the quarter-finals in Spain.

"If you take out [the] States and probably Spain at home, every other team is beatable, if we play well. If we don't play well, we've got no chance," Vucinic said, shortly after his side's dramatic 67-65 win over Finland to seal progression. "We believe that we're in a good mental state now. We have to recover physically after those last two games and hopefully we'll come ready to play."

Lithuania won Group D, which included Slovenia and Australia, and are bronze medallists from the 2010 world championships in Turkey. They also finished runners-up to France at EuroBasket last year. But the Tall Blacks lost to the Baltic nation by just six points in Lithuania last month and led for the majority of the game.

"We've got a game we played against them, so we can see the weaknesses and strengths we've got compared to them. But they've got the same thing so it's an even field," Vucinic said.

The Tall Blacks looked flat earlier in the tournament, but Vucinic is adamant his coaching staff will not be allowing that to happen again. "Myself, Pero [Cameron] and Paulie [Henare] are bastards. We manage to keep the focus of the guys well," he said. "We talk straight to them about everything they do and they respond well. So I don't think there'll be any relaxing."

A 20-year-old college student has played a key role in the Tall Blacks' turnaround in Spain. After playing less than 10 minutes of New Zealand's disappointing loss to the Dominican Republic, University of Hawaii forward Isaac Fotu recorded a double-double (10 points and 10 rebounds) in the key win over Ukraine. Fotu then backed that up by scoring a game-high 18 points against Finland.

Vucinic has had high hopes for Fotu, since picking the then 17-year-old to tour with the Tall Blacks in 2011. "We just hope that he will keep progressing, keep getting better and better and be one of the stalwarts for the Tall Blacks in the future," he said.

Fotu has noticed the spirits lift within the squad.

"We were pretty down when we lost to the Dominican Republic, but to bounce back and win these two games has given us a confidence booster and shown we can play against any team in the world, maybe apart from the USA and Spain.

"Any team is beatable for us, if we put our mind to it and believe."