Basketball: Tall Blacks name Commonwealth Games squad

Tom Abercrombie is back in the Tall Blacks. Photo / Photosport

The Tall Blacks will be one of the strongest sides at the Commonwealth Games, after revealing a solid 12-man squad today.

They'll be without their three best players – Isaac Fotu, Corey Webster and Tai Webster – none of whom were made available by their European sides, but the return of Mika Vukona and Tom Abercrombie gives the side an experienced core.

The squad is weaker than their recent team for the FIBA World Cup qualifiers, but stronger than the one which finished fourth at the Asia Cup last year, and is likely to perform well against weaker opposition at the Games.

Vukona, Abercrombie, Jarrod Kenny, Alex Pledger and Rob Loe all missed the Asia Cup but will travel to the Gold Coast, where they will be joined by some of the standouts from the Asia Cup, such as Shea Ili, Reuben Te Rangi and Finn Delany.

Rounding out the 12 are point guard Derone Raukawa, swingmen Ethan Rusbatch and Jordan Ngatai, and Melbourne United forward Tohi Smith-Milner.

Tall Blacks coach Paul Henare says he is happy with the amount of experience the group has cultivated over the past year.

"While some of this group are younger in years, they have all benefited from recent international basketball, through the 2017 Asia Cup when we took a very inexperienced team away, to recent New Zealand Select tours to China, and of course many were involved in recent FIBA World Cup qualifying windows," said Henare.

"Guys like Ethan, Derone and Tohi are young but bring the experience of that Asia Cup campaign to every team they play for, while others such as Shea, Finn, Jordan and our captain Reuben all benefited hugely from that experience and have a great understanding of the pressure they will face in the next few weeks."

On paper, the Tall Blacks are the second strongest squad for the Games, behind Australia, who will be odds-on favourites for gold once again. The pair are in Pool A alongside Nigeria and Canada, with the top two teams automatically progressing to the semifinals.

That will likely be Australia and New Zealand, with Canada set to send a development team, and Nigeria possessing former NBA player Ike Diogu, but otherwise selecting a largely local side. The bottom two sides from Pool A then go into the qualifying finals against two teams from the inferior Pool B, which consists of Cameroon, England, India and Scotland.

The Tall Blacks' first game is against Nigeria on April 6.

Squad: Shea Ili, Jarrod Kenny, Derone Raukawa, Reuben Te Rangi, Ethan Rusbatch, Tom Abercrombie, Jordan Ngatai, Tohi Smith-Milner, Mika Vukona, Finn Delany, Alex Pledger, Rob Loe