KEY POINTS:
In a perfect world, the Tall Blacks will brush aside Cape Verde tomorrow night before edging out Germany, leaving them with a quarter-final against a Brazil side shorn of a couple of big stars. Victory there would see them into a top four, from which three teams will book tickets for Beijing.
But things have not been perfect in the Tall Blacks world for some time so they start this Olympic qualification tournament in a position they're probably more comfortable with: rank outsiders.
With established veterans such as Ed Book, Dillon Boucher and Tony Rampton no longer in the mix, forward Mika Vukona and centres Craig Bradshaw and naturalised American Nick Horvath have to pick up the slack.
Kirk Penney will be the focal point of the offence and the Tall Blacks will, to a large extent, live or die from his ability to read screens and get good looks at the basket. The offence looked toothless against a well-organised Boomers 'D' and Penney has given his team-mates added confidence since joining the squad after "low key" trials with NBA thoroughbred San Antonio Spurs.
The FIBA qualifying tournament, in Athens, is brutal.
The 12-team tournament features four pools of three. New Zealand's pool contains Germany and Cape Verde Islands, a surprise packet who qualified out of Africa ahead of more fancied Nigeria. The Tall Blacks and Germany - with NBA star Dirk Nowitzki and Los Angeles Clippers centre Chris Kaman - would both fancy their chances of beating the Islanders, however, setting up a Thursday morning battle for top of the pool.
This match takes on extra significance as the loser would most likely have to play Greece in the quarter-finals and the home side is heavy favourite to take out the tournament.
The winner would probably meet Brazil, with Euroleague all-star centre Tiago Splitter their most dangerous player.
The winners of the quarter-final meet in crossovers. On reputation the favourites would be Greece, Germany, Croatia and Slovenia, but New Zealand, Puerto Rico and Brazil will all fancy an upset. The winners of the crossover get entry to Beijing while the losers meet in a winner-takes-all playoff.
* Tall Blacks schedule:
vs Cape Verde, tomorrow, 10pm
vs Germany, Thursday, 4.30am
