D League, Tall Blacks and more

The Harbour Breeze squad (pictured) are preparing for the upcoming D League Tournament that will be held at Eventfinda Stadium (August 17-20).

The tournament will be held alongside the men’s U23 National Championship.

A 12-team competition, the Breeze will face Canterbury and Auckland Dream Blue in Pool play on the opening day.

Kirk Penney, arguably the greatest player to have ever donned a Harbour singlet made a one-stop appearance for the Auckland Tuatara on Saturday night at Eventfinda Stadium.

Playing his first full game since retiring in 2018 Kirk scored 12 points but couldn’t prevent the Tuatara going down 90-89 to Wellington Saints. Rob Loe tallied a double-double of 14 points and 10 rebounds for the Tuatara.

We are fortunate that the NBL play-offs are happening in our backyard beginning on Wednesday August 10. Harbour players involved in the play-offs this coming week are:

Auckland Tuatara – Rob Loe, Reuben Fitzgerald, Tom Beattie, Charlie Dalton

Hawks Bay Hawks – Jarrod Kenny and Jack Salt

Taranaki Airs – Scott Telfer

It was recently announced that the Tall Blacks will play Jordan in a FIBA World Cup Asian Qualifier game at Eventfinda Stadium on 29 August.

Head coach Pero Cameron has confirmed that a veteran trio, including former Harbour star Isaac Fotu and other ex-Auckland standouts Reuben Te Rangi and Shea Il, will be suiting up for this game . Expect other Harbour players to be named when the full squad is announced in the coming days.

Whether one of those players is Tai Webster is unclear as the point guard has just signed with Socar Petkinspor in the Turkish League. Tai has previously played in Turkey with Galatasaray but most recently (2021-22) played in the Lithuanian League.

After nine consecutive wins Northern Kāhu suffered their first loss of the Tauihi Basketball Aotearoa season going down 94-76 to an impressive Tokomanawa Queens outfit. Micaela Cocks was again a standout for Kāhu scoring a team high 24 points.

Akiene-Tera Reed was also in double figures with 13 points.

The Kāhu have one more regular season home game when they play Mainland Pouākai at Eventfinda on Sunday August 21st

The Sky Sport Breakers began pre-season training today (Monday). Veterans Tom Abercrombie and Rob Loe plus rookie Dan Fotu are the former Harbour reps on the Breakers roster for the 2022-23 Australian NBL season.




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