The Tall Blacks and NZ Breakers have helped put our country on the map, but for players in the regions the chance to train with a professional US coach is an all-too-rare treat.
This week the scenario has become a reality thanks to California-based Ryan Turcott, who is in Tauranga for
a series of sessions with basketballers of all age groups.
Fresh from a two-year stint as head assistant coach at the University of La Verne in LA County, Turcott is on a coaching tour that began this month with two weeks in Hawaii and will take in a further five countries.
Held at the Queen Elizabeth Youth Centre and Merivale Hall, the workouts cater to age groups from early teens up to seniors.
Acting as tour guide and assisting at the clinics in New Zealand is national under-16 assistant coach Blake Moore. Kicking off his two-week New Zealand stint on June 15, Turcott has already held sessions in Dunedin and said at his first Tauranga session yesterday that one trait of Kiwi kids he's picked up on is "they're a bit shy".
"Communication is so important on-court. You really have to speak up, so I do a few things to help break down the barriers."
Drills such as chanting "ball, ball, ball" while skipping arm-in-arm was a likely first for Tauranga City Basketball's under-13 and under-15 reps, but it worked a charm in loosening the vocal chords.
There may be something else in his favour too - if sports can have an accent, surely basketball speaks with an American tongue.
"Blake's mentioned that. I'm not used to being the guy with the accent but if it helps me, I'll take it," Turcott said.
His Tauranga clinics range from basic defence to using body blocking screens in attack and advanced post play around the basket, depending on the age of participants.
A point guard for Oregon's Pacific University in the Varsity NCAA Division III competition from 2005 to 2008, he got a taste for coaching abroad last August as co-director at the Children of the World Basketball Camp in Istanbul, involving 400 players and 200 coaches.
"There were so many different nationalities, communication could be tricky but basketball was our common language."
The 27-year-old certainly has basketball in the blood. His father Gary served as a NIAA Division I coach for 20 years at Carroll College in Montana, and brother Greg is head coach at Shoreline Community College in Seattle.
"I first noticed New Zealand when the Tall Blacks got fourth place at the world championship in 2002," he explained. "From that point on I knew there was a basketball culture here.
"A big thing that's struck me is the dominance of netball on the women's side [in New Zealand]. You have to compete with that to get women into basketball."
Tauranga City under-15 representatives Jack Neale and Landon Ebling, who are part of the national under-14 development squad, were rapt after their hour-long session yesterday morning.
"It was awesome," Neale said. "We did some different boxing-out drills, hitting the man hard then going for the ball. I was looking forward to this all day yesterday."
"We learned a lot about triangle work on rebounds," said Ebling. "If the ball goes up and bounces you've got all angles covered."
Turcott's international foray, detailed on his "Run With Me" blog, will take him on to Australia, Singapore, Turkey, Romania and Palestine over the next two months.
CoachForce officer for basketball in the Bay of Plenty, Andy McKay, said Turcott's visit is a welcome boost for the game locally.
"We're lucky as a town to get someone of Ryan's calibre to share their expertise at the small cost of $2 a head," he said.
The Tall Blacks and NZ Breakers have helped put our country on the map, but for players in the regions the chance to train with a professional US coach is an all-too-rare treat.
This week the scenario has become a reality thanks to California-based Ryan Turcott, who is in Tauranga for
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