The Task

The task was thus: World Cup Qualification. The Tall Ferns were placed in a group hosted by Puerto Rico, having progressed this far thanks to their fifth place finish at the Asia Cup last year, with the opportunity to break a very long major tournament drought if they could find a couple wins.

The Tall Blacks always compete at World Cups but the Tall Ferns do not. They’ve only ever made the Olympic Games in 2000, 2004, and 2008 (helped immensely by Australia on all three occasions, with the Aussies leaving the Oceania spot open on two of those occasions by being hosts or world champs... while in 2004 they included two Oceania teams). In terms of World Cups, we’ve only made it once and that was way back in 1994 when, again, Australia qualified automatically as hosts. That means those 2008 Olympic Games were the last instance of the Tall Ferns on the world stage... Suzie Bates was in that squad and has scored about 10,000 international runs for the White Ferns cricket team since then.

This time the format involved four qualifying tournaments, with 24 nations split into four groups. That included the various confederation champs who have already qualified: Belgium (Europe), USA (Americas), Nigeria (Africa), Australia (Asia/Oceania), and also hosts Germany. The top four in each group qualify for the main event but those five teams there have already been guaranteed their spots. They all finished in the top four of their sections anyway... but hypothetically if USA had dropped to fifth in our group, for example, then only the top three spots would have earned qualification to preserve USA’s existing spot. Seems a bit weird including teams who’ve already done the business but s’pose good competitive women’s internationals like this are hard to come by. They need the games like everyone else needs the games – and it gives the other 19 teams challenging for the remaining 11 spots a full experience of where the required level is at.

Righto then, not too complicated. The Tall Ferns needed to finish above two teams in a group of: Spain, Italy, Senegal, USA, and Puerto Rico (hosts). Two of those teams were never going to be within NZ’s range. Spain and USA are kilometres above as powerhouse women’s basketball nations – especially the Americans who picked a squad stacked with WNBA icons. But two wins from three against the rest of them would do the trick. NZ were seeded fifth based on world rankings (Senegal were the team below, though only a few rankings separated those two from being the other way around). The odds had us on the outers... though that’s nothing new for kiwi basketball.

The Squad

Yeah but as much as we love a bit of the ol’ underdog status, the squad that was named took that to a level way beyond comfort. Not a single player with 20 international caps made the cut or was available. More on that later but ever since Natalie Hurst took took over as interim coach last year, later promoted to the full job, there’s been huge turnover between her squads. That’s kinda the nature of international basketball. Hurst has never been able to rely upon consistency from tour to tour. These are all the players who’ve been part of official squads (including training players) in the five tours that Coach Hurst has been in charge for – those being a ‘Select’ tour of Japan, World Cup Pre-Qualifiers, Trans-Tasman Showdown, the Asia Cup, and these World Cup Qualifiers...

McKenna Dale, Tayla Dalton, Bailey Flavell, Pahlyss Hokianga, Esra McGoldrick, Rebecca Pizzey, Emme Shearer, Ashlee Strawbridge, Ritorya Tamilo, Ella Tofaeono, Charlotte Whittaker, Olivia Williams, Ella Brow, Maia Jones, Waiata Jennings, Ella Bradley, Kaylee Smiler, Tylah Hooper, Sharne Robati, Keriana Hippolite, Tegan Graham, Penina Davidson, Ella Fotu, Tera Reed, Lauren Whittaker, Tahlia Tupaea, Lilly Taulelei, Lilly Parke, Tara Manumaleuga, Eva Langton, Dominique Stephens, Grace Hunter, Aimee Book, Jade Kirisome, Briarley Rogers, and Emma Rogers

That’s 36 players in the space of two-and-a-bit years... and it doesn’t even include the fit-again Charlisse Leger-Walker. The only player who’d been on all four tours with Coach Hurst was Esra McGoldrick but she was unavailable for personal reasons for these WCQs. Oh well, you work with what you’ve got and these were the players tasked with getting the Tall Ferns to their first World Cup in three decades, led by captain and most experienced player Tayla Dalton...

Tayla Dalton, Tegan Graham, Pahlyss Hokianga, Jade Kirisome, Rebecca Pizzey, Sharne Robati, Briarley Rogers, Emma Rogers, Emme Shearer, Ashlee Strawbridge, Ella Tofaeono, Charlotte Whittaker

The Games

It began with Spain, a very unwinnable game against a powerhouse nation and therefore a chance to get the legs moving and tune things up for more realistic tasks. The starting five was: Dalton, Shearer, Graham, Pizzey & Robati. Good size there, allowing the kiwis to muscle up and grabs some rebounds as they held Spain to just two points halfway through the opening quarter. Alas, constant turnovers and tough shots against a stifling defence meant that the NZers couldn’t capitalise and by the end of the frame, Spain were up 22-9. It was the same story for the rest of the way. The turnover count was disastrous – NZ with 25, Spain with only 4 (it was 35-0 in terms of points from turnovers). Everyone got minutes for both teams hence there were debuts for the Rogers cousins and also Jade Kirisome. A missed free throw at the very end meant that Spain were at least held within triple-digits. Final score was 99-50. Ella Tofaeono top-scored for the Ferns logging 14 points on her 28th birthday.

Okay, fine, that went about as anticipated. But Italy the following day was a game that both coach and captain had told us they’d circled as one they could compete in. Same starting five. And... the same issues with turnovers continued. Italy burst out of the gates although New Zealand stuck with them once that early shooting blitz eased up. Tegan Graham hit a few threes, the bigs were able to draw fouls down low. The Ferns hauled it back to 38-30 by half-time and then held Italy scoreless for long enough in the third quarter to make it a one-possession game again. Then fouls and general sloppiness led to a 9-0 run for Italy and it was never close again. Four-point plays are killers. This time the turnover difference was 26 to 8. Nobody scored double digits for Aotearoa. 74-51 was the final score.

Next came Senegal in what was always a must-win game against the only lower-seeded team in the tournament but even more so after the loss to Italy. And yet, and yet... against a Senegalese team with significant height and length advantages at almost every position the scoring woes continued. There was nobody who could get separation from their marker. The passing and off-ball movement wasn’t crisp enough to consistently create space and the Ferns, in this must-win game, shot a mere 28% from the field. Senegal weren’t that much better but they did make nine triples. In a desperately low-scorer, it was 14-10 to Senegal after 1Q. Rebecca Pizzey knocked down a triple to give NZ a 22-20 lead at one stage, things were looking okay about then, although Senegal hit a late three for a 29-24 lead at HT. Then after Graham knocked down another three to begin the third, the Tall Ferns shot 2/11 across the rest of the quarter and the fourth was even worse. Senegal went on a 17-1 run during the third. It ended up being NZ’s worst scoring game of the tournament, going down 61-45 to leave those World Cup dreams on the windy precipice.

Game four was against an absolutely stacked USA team featuring names like Caitlin Clark, Kelsey Plum, Angel Reese, Jackie Young, and Paige Bueckers. It’s not simply that they were stacked with current WNBA players... 10/12 players on that roster have been WNBA All-Stars and most of them on multiple occasions so they were all among the best WNBA players. Credit where credit is due, for the Tall Ferns to only be down 11-10 midway through the first quarter and have the USA coach, Nate Tibbetts, call a timeout in which he declared: “they’re playing their asses off, they’re being more physical”, was a pretty decent spot to find themselves in. The kiwis certainly weren’t intimidated. Granted, USA went on a 16-2 run the rest of the quarter and obviously their best-in-the-world talent shone through for a hefty win in the end. But all things considered, a 101-46 defeat against that USA team probably counts as the best performance of the lot.

That left one last outing and believe it or not the Tall Ferns weren’t out of it yet. With Italy thrashing Senegal in the game immediately before (85-35!), New Zealand knew they could qualify with a win against hosts Puerto Rico as long as they overturned the points difference between themselves and their final opponents. Had to win by 24 points and when they closed the first quarter on a 12-0 run, going up by nine, there was reason to dream. Ella Tofaeono (who moved into the starting five for the last two games) had a lot to do with that late 1Q burst – then she threw down a tough bucket to start the second quarter and Puerto Rico were forced into a timeout within a minute of the restart.

But Puerto Rico had shooters and they chipped away to take a slight lead into the big break and the kiwis couldn’t hang with that. They kept it close through most of the third despite losing the lead but remember they had to win by 24 points. That just wasn’t going to happen. It especially wasn’t going to happen with another repeat of their awful fourth quarter scoring, only putting up seven points in the final frame to fall to a fifth double-digit defeat in a row. At least Ella Tofaeono did score 17 points, the highest individual scoring game of the tourney for the kiwis. Sharne Robati (13p) and Tayla Dalton (12p) chipped in too.

The Reaction

So... the Tall Ferns won’t be going to the World Cup later in the year. The drought ensues. This was a qualification format that seemed to offer them the cleanest path in ages but in hindsight the squad they picked was never going to be good enough. Coach Nat Hurst spoke afterwards about how proud she was of the effort and commitment and the way the team stuck together despite the results. Those things are true. They didn’t lack for work ethic, though they surely lacked for quality. Check these results again...

Lost 99-50 to Spain
Lost 74-51 to Italy
Lost 61-45 to Senegal
Lost 101-46 to USA
Lost 77-60 to Puerto Rico

The lowest points tally that the Ferns kept an opponent to across these five opportunities (Senegal’s 61 points) was more than the highest amount of points that the New Zealanders scored in any game (60 vs Puerto Rico). They had more turnovers than their opponents in every single game, averaging 22.4 turnovers per fixture. They had six separate quarters in which they were held to single digit points and three of those came in fourth quarters. Their tournament totals were 65 assists to 112 turnovers. We also committed the most fouls of the six teams in attendance and had the fewest steals. Losing margins were 49 points, 23 points, 16 points, 55 points, and 17 points. It’s one thing to get blown out by Caitlin Clark and the USA team but to also get wasted by Senegal and Puerto Rico was nasty stuff.

Did this team play to their capabilities? Probably not. There were marginal improvements along the way, with the elevation of Tofaeono to the starting five helping mattes, but the same issues that were there in the first quarter remained unsolved in the last quarter. However, the bigger question is why we wasted such a good chance to qualify for a major tournament by sending a squad that doesn’t represent the strength of kiwi basketball.

The timing of the tournament was the first problem because it clashed with tournament season in college basketball. There goes our best player, Charlisse Leger-Walker, along with other college standouts (many of them already capped) such as Lauren Whittaker, Bailey Flavell, Maia Jones, Tori Tamilo, and Ella Brow. Beyond that, McKenna Dale and Ella Fotu are both injured. Then there’s a whole bunch of players who were presumably unavailable which includes names like Esra McGoldrick, Penina Davidson, Tahlia Tuapea, Tera Reed, and Stella Beck.

No doubt those players all have good reasons for not being able to partake – gotta imagine that a few of them have day jobs given how these things often go with women’s sports, particularly with the short seasons of some of those leagues. It doesn’t sound like Nat Hurst was shunting anyone, she was working with what she had and trying to pick the strongest squad possible. Although it does feel like these Tall Ferns squads have become progressively more watered down over the past two years... Reed, Beck, and Davidson haven’t played for the national team since 2024 while Tupaea’s last appearance was a year prior to that. It’s pretty frustrating when the talent was there to have a good go at qualifying but they couldn’t utilise it.

Did Basketball New Zealand do enough to prioritise this tournament? Is the coach building a team that players are desperate to be part of? Are those senior players showing the commitment required of them? Yeah dunno... those are questions for others to answer. But there were positives in amongst the heavy defeats. Two players in particular: Sharne Robati and Ella Tofaeono.

Sharne Robati (niece of Steven Adams, by the way, which his old teammate Danilo Gallinari didn’t seem to realise as he co-commentated on these games for FIBA) is new upon the scene having only debuted in 2024, yet she was probably NZ’s most impressive performer in the series against Australia last year and after missing the Asia Cup she was back for these games where she was again one of the picks of the bunch. For starters, she was the most dependable three-point shooter in the squad. Led the team in rebounds too. She played tough and carved out plenty of pockets of success within her minutes. The 25yo is coming off a season with Adelaide Thunder in the Aussie NBL (signed by Tall Ferns assistant Kerryn Mitchell – who was sacked eight games into the season) so hopefully this is merely the beginning of her journey in the black singlet.

Ella Tofaeono was born in Auckland but raised in Australia, the centre committing her eligibility to Aotearoa a couple years ago – around the time she got her first development player contract in the WNBL. She’s been in the last four squads in a row, something only Pahlyss Hokianga and Ashlee Strawbridge can match, however this was the tour where she stepped into prominence. Top scorer in the squad with 54 points in five games. Worked her way into the starting five after three games off the bench. Like Robati, she played tough and was able to get herself to the free throw line repeatedly (where she shot 85%) and her offensive rebounding was always a threat. Very much an inside threat, not someone with a whole lot of shooting range, but with the strength and balance (and finishing touch) to get the ball in the basket even in a team whose offensive struggles meant there wasn’t a whole lot of room to work with in the painted area.

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