KEY POINTS:
New national coach Nenad Vucinic will bring his own style to the Tall Blacks but promises to carry on with the hard-nosed, tough attitude that took New Zealand to fourth in the world in 2002.
Vucinic replaces Tab Baldwin, who stepped down after this year's world championship in Japan, and his first goal is to qualify the Tall Blacks for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Vucinic, appointed for a year, was Baldwin's right-hand man through two world championships, an Olympics and a Commonwealth Games.
"Five years with Tab has given me a lot of knowledge and experience in preparation of the team, experience in how big tournaments are run and the pressure that comes with it," said Vucinic yesterday.
"I am different from Tab and I am not going to coach like Tab because the systems that we have coached are mainly his systems.
"But there is a lot of stuff that came from my systems.
"Obviously I will use some of the systems he has already put into place but I will not try to continue exactly the systems we have been using.
"What I will try to continue from the last five years is that hard-nosed, tough approach that Tab has installed in that the players do not fear anybody. They have got respect for everybody but they will try to do everything they can on the night to beat even the toughest team in the world."
Vucinic's first task is to plot the downfall of Australia in the 2007 Oceania championships in August, which double as the qualifying event for Beijing.
He would not rule out introducing new blood into the Tall Blacks but said qualifying series were not the place to do them.
"I certainly won't rule out there will be new blood in the team but I really have to take a wide open approach to this.
"I don't think we can use qualifying series to blood new players though - we have to seek other avenues to do this. At qualifying, we have to have the best team."
Vucinic said the Tall Blacks had proven in the past the Boomers were beatable. "We know they will be a young team - how many of their top players will come back [from overseas] we don't know ... We have the edge in experience but that alone is not going to get us anywhere. We know we have to play as hard as they do, we have to train harder than they do."
Vucinic said he would have six to eight weeks to prepare the side.
"The fact that there is a new coach and new systems will make it hard but at no point will I try to make that an excuse. We just have to make the most of it."
Vucinic said he would continue to coach the Nelson Giants in the National Basketball League to keep himself sharp.
"Just as a player can't just turn up for three competitive games, a coach cannot either."
Vucinic migrated from the then Yugoslavia to New Zealand when he was 23 and first played for the Tall Blacks in 1992, retiring after the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
He played more than 200 National Basketball League games for Nelson, helping them to a championship in 1994. As coach, he guided Nelson to their second NBL title in 1998.
He won his fifth coach of the year award this year after his 144th career coaching victory, passing Baldwin for the most wins in NBL history.
"Nenad is the man for this job," Basketball New Zealand chief executive Bryn McGoldrick said. "There is no one in New Zealand more qualified to take over from Tab and he passionately wants the job."
Nenad Vucinic
* Tall Blacks debut 1992.
* Retired after 2000 Olympics.
* 200 NBL games for Nelson.
* Five coach of the year awards with Nelson.
- NZPA
