It was satisfaction all round as everyone left TECT Arena with what they wanted last night - Tauranga City men without the black stain of a loss against a bunch of females and legendary Arizona coach Charli Turner Thorn with a better idea of the job ahead.
Arizona State, one of the United States' leading college women's basketball teams, opened their three-game New Zealand tour with a 78-72 loss to Tauranga City's thrown-together junior men's team, whose up-tempo, run-and-gun style wouldn't have sated the purists but was worth a look for sheer entertainment value alone.
Tauranga, who'd never played together before, opened up a slender 44-40 halftime lead on the back of outstanding forward Matt Fullerton's 20-point hot hand - and then promptly undid all their good work with a woeful third quarter, nailing just one basket in a myriad of misses.
Arizona grabbed a two-buffer down the stretch on the back of some great athleticism from their 183cm-plus big players Elisha Davis, Joy Burke and Jada Blackwell before Tauranga thawed out, with high octane Callum Shephard tieing it up with four minutes to go and a revived Fullerton rebooting his radar to nail several crucial lay-ups and the gimme points from the free-throw line. The 21-year-old architecture student said everyone's motivation was the same when they came together as a team an hour before tipoff - to not lose to the girls.
"That's all we were hoping for regardless of how we played. None of us wanted to go home having got beaten by girls for the first time, although in saying that they're a great team and definitely in a college league that's one of the best in the world so it wouldn't have been a huge disgrace."
Fullerton took the best part of a quarter to lock and load, but when he did the points came raining down, with the 195cm-tall former Tauranga Boys' College player putting on a masterclass of penetration while knocking down a couple from beyond the arc to showcase his versatility.
Tauranga's lack of game time together was obvious from the start as passes went begging or fell into opposition hands, and with a roster of solid units Arizona weren't offering any free points.
They weren't offering many freebies at all after halftime, completely messing up Tauranga's flow. "They'd obviously gone into the locker room and figured out our strategy well and shut us right down," Fullerton said.
In fact, Thorn, one of the coaches with the most wins in US collegiate history, had done that even before the game started, watching from a distance at Tauranga's warmup drills before gathering her players around the locker room whiteboard to detail precisely the opposition's key plays.
Thorn, back after a year's hiatus, said they got exactly what they wanted out of the 90 minutes. "We balanced out the minutes across the team and Tauranga was real athletic and active and did some really good things, very similar to our (men's) scout team in practise only better because they're a team.
"It was a great first game for us, and as much as we would have liked to win the thing we have to remember is we don't have roles, we don't have starters and we don't have rotations yet. Everyone got minutes and we looked at some combinations, and I'm happy because we scored 72 points - and this is a team last year that struggled to shoot the ball. I'd be happier if we didn't give up 78 points but there's five girls back from last year and a new coaching staff so we're a ways off game shape."
Last night's scorers:
Tauranga City under-23 men 78 (Matt Fullerton 30, Callum Shephard 14, Theo Johnson 10, Caelen Wood 8) Arizona State University 72 (Janae Fulcher 15, Deja Mann 9, Micaela Pickens, Joy Burke, Haley Videckis 8). HT: 44-40 Tga City