The veteran Mika Vukona is the only player from the 2006 silver medal winning New Zealand basketball team to return for a second Commonwealth Games campaign, while arguably the team's best players, the Europe based trio of Corey and Tai Webster and Isaac Fotu, are unavailable, as are a bunch of young New Zealanders playing college basketball in the United States.
The experienced duo of Vukona and Tom Abercrombie are back after missing the Tall Blacks most recent outing in the February Fiba international window when they secured away victories over China and Korea in their Asia Group World Cup qualifiers.
Basketball has featured only once at the Games - 12 years ago in Melbourne when the Tall Blacks finished second to Australia.
Tall Blacks coach Paul Henare and his assistant Pero Cameron were members of that team but the 35 year old Vukona is the only one who will take the court this time.
Mika Vukona in action for the Breakers. Photo: Photosport
Henare has named a 12-strong roster has a mix of youth and experience.
"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 (Rusbatch), Derone (Raukawa) and Tohi (Smith-Milner) are young but bring the experience of that Asia Cup campaign to every team they play for, while others such as Shea (Ili), Finn (Delany), Jordan (Ngatai) and our captain Reuben (Te Rangi) all benefited hugely from that experience and have a great understanding of the pressure they will face in the next few weeks."
Henare does however have some old hands to call on, players who will not have the pressure of doing anything than just 'be themselves' in a young group.
"Mika (Vukona), Tom (Abercrombie), JK (Jarrod Kenny), Pledge (Alex Pledger) and Rob (Loe) are the old heads in this group, but they just need to be themselves, there is no expectation on them doing anything other than just be leaders in what they do and how they behave and play.
Vukona said he has vivid memories of the 2006 Games.
Mika Vukona, Dillon Boucher and Lindsay Tait on the podium at the 2006 Commonwealth Games. Photo: Photosport
"We won silver but what I remember is being in a great position to win gold," he said.
"We led the Aussies going into the final quarter and it was only a couple of key moments that saw the game go away from us."
The Tall Blacks Commonwealth Games experience will be somewhat different this time with much of the basketball being played in Cairns 1700km away from the host city Gold Coast.
The tournament format is different to the typical FIBA format, with the top four seeded nations grouped together in Pool A.
The top two sides from that pool progress directly to the semifinals, while the bottom two will play against the top two teams from the lower ranked pool, with the winners of those two games also progressing to the semifinals.
New Zealand will play Nigeria, Canada and Australia in pool play, with all matches being played in Cairns, before teams move back to the Gold Coast for semifinals and medal rounds.
The other pool consists of England, Scotland, India and Cameroon.
The first match for New Zealand is against Nigeria on April 6th.
The naming of the Tall Blacks team takes the total number of New Zealand athletes confirmed for the Games to 215.
New Zealand Men's Basketball Team:
Derone Raukawa, Shea Ili, Jarrod Kenny, Reuben Te Rangi, Ethan Rusbatch, Jordan Ngatai,
Tom Abercrombie, Finn Delany, Mika Vukona, Tohi Smith-Milner, Rob Loe, Alex Pledger.
-RNZ
