Tall Blacks spanked

The New Zealand men’s basketball team’s Olympic Games prospects look grim after they were thumped 84-62 by Macedonia, last year’s European semifinalists, at Caracas, Venezuela, this morning. Nenad Vucinic’s team was led by centre Alex Pledger, who had 11 points and 11 rebounds. The Tall Blacks have gone in to the 12-team qualifying series heavily undermanned and lost all three warmup games against Brazil, Greece and Nigeria. Tomorrow the Tall Blacks play Angola.