Congratulations to Julius Halaifonua and Dan Fotu, who helped the Tall Blacks to an emphatic 88-49 win against Hong Kong in front of an enthusiastic crowd at Eventfinda Stadium on Sunday in a FIBA Asia Cup Qualifying tie.

Dan finished with 13 points, 6 rebounds and 3 steals whilst  17-year old Julius, on debut and in front of plenty of local support, posted 4 points, 4 rebounds and a couple of trademark blocks.

Julius was spared the trip up to Chinese Taipei for the first of the qualifiers on Thursday night, a game in which the Tall Blacks used a dominant fourth quarter to earn an 89-69 road win over the host country. Dan put in a strong showing with 14 points and 6 rebounds.

Formerly from Rosmini College and a Harbour U17 representative Julius, who currently schools and trains at the NBA Global Academy in Canberra, has become the eighth youngest player ever to play for the Tall Blacks.

Remarkably six of the 10 youngest Tall Blacks are ex-Harbour representative players:

Tai Wynyard (16yrs, 160 days)

Izayah Le’afa (16yrs, 262 days)

Tai Webster (17yrs, 28 days)

Hayden Jones (17yrs, 47 days

Taine Murray (17yrs, 123 days)

Jack Salt (17yrs, 167 days)

Isaac Fotu (17yrs, 231 days)

Julius Halaifonua (17yrs, 292 days)

Ben Gold (17yrs, 328 days)

Rob Loe (17yrs, 353 days)

NCAA Division I

Tayla Dalton, in scoring a career high 27 points (9/15Fg, ¾ 3PG), carried her career points tally beyond 900 as St Mary’s College, California defeated Loyola Marymount 70-66.

Tayla followed that a couple of days later with 18 points as St Mary’s went down 69-52 to San Diego – her 923 career points placing her 20^th on the all-time list of New Zealand scorers in Women’s NCAA Division I basketball.

NCAA Division II

Despite Nebraska Kearney suffering a pair of losses during the week (going down 73-55 to Missouri Southern and 90-64 to Pittsburgh State) Sean Murphy came up with a pair of monster double-doubles. Sean had 25 points and 17 rebounds against Missouri followed by 15 points and 14 rebounds against Pittsburgh.

Hannah Wentworth top scored for Eckerd College in their 80-58 win over Lynn University - Hannah scored 14 points (4/5FG, 4/4FT) thus passing the 200 points mark for the season.

Parehuia Delamere had 8 points and 6 rebounds as Young Harris eventually got the better of Barton winning 72-67 in overtime.

NAIA

Rashaan Smith was one of only two players in double figures for Texas Wesleyan as they were trumped by Sterling 97-61. The former Birkenhead College standout finished with 13 points and 8 rebounds.

Junior College

Boston Caldwell scored 16 points and added 5 rebounds, 4 assists and a pair of steals as Central Maine Community College defeated Vermont State University Randolph in YSCC (Yankee Small College Conference) play-off action.

There is nothing to report from the professional ranks this week as all the major leagues around the world closed down for a couple of weeks during the FIBA international window.