Braswell happy with venue
Wellington Saints Kevin Braswell believes the people of Tauranga will get out and support the National Basketball League.
The league announced this week the Bay of Plenty city would host the NBL Final Four in June, despite Tauranga not having an NBL team.
Tauranga has put in a bid to join the league next season and Braswell expected a good turnout after experiencing the region’s passion for basketball during last October’s HoopNation tournament.
‘‘I think it’s great. I looked at when I played at HoopNation and a lot of people came out for that.
‘‘It’s a good location and a great venue, but it’ll take some work to make sure we’ve got a lot of people in the seats.’’
Most people were hoping to avoid the situation in 2013 when Napier hosted the Final Four, but the Hawke’s Bay Hawks didn’t make the playoffs and the showpiece event was played in front of a half-empty stadium.
Braswell said he didn’t expect that to happen this year.
‘‘I played that Final Four [in Napier] and it was a struggle, but I think since the people in Hawke’s Bay had a team, that was the reason the crowds didn’t show up.
‘‘If you have a team and they don’t make the finals then you don’t really want to support the others, but if there’s no team there [Tauranga] it’ll be OK.’’
Although he didn’t say so, part of Braswell must also be relieved his team won’t have to travel to enemy ground in their quest for back-to-back titles.
Last year the Final Four was held in Invercargill, although it didn’t help the Southland Sharks, who lost their semifinal to the Supercity Rangers.
With TSB Bank Arena in Wellington unavailable, a neutral venue was the next best thing for the Saints - not that they need much help after getting to 11-0 this season.
Ahead of their next match, at home to the Taranaki Mountainairs tonight, Braswell said his team continued to get better.
‘‘We probably had one of our best trainings on Monday. I felt like that training was a finals training. When you get to finals weekend and the preparation for that the guys go so hard to the point where it’s hard to call fouls as a coach because it’s so intense and competitive.’’
However, there was still areas which needed to improve, notably not switching off mentally when out to decent lead, as they did in their 98-87 win over the Supercity Rangers last Friday.
‘‘We were up 19 in the first half and 16 in the second half. If you come to our trainings and then went to a game, you’d leave saying wow. It’s crazy, they really go after it [at training].
‘‘I sometimes think when they’re playing certain opponents they get that same type of enjoyment, then against other teams they don’t get as much enjoyment and that’s where they’ve said this week that they need to improve. That’s all it is.’’
The Mountainairs have lost eight games in a row to slip to 3-9, but expect to have Houston O’Riley and import centre Daniel Gomis back, which made Braswell wary of the threat they posed.
‘‘It’s a good mental test for our guys. I don’t overlook any opponent and I don’t think the team does either, but at the same time I want to have a really good showing this week.’’