‘Replay’ of grand final for opening night

READY FOR TIP-OFF: Team captains gather before the start of the 2016 Gisborne basketball leagues. Men’s captains (from left): Ryan Nepe (Gisborne Boys’ High School), Adrian Sparks (SE Systems), Levi Hohipa-Henry (Lytton High School), Brandon Paul (East Coast), Scott Muncaster (City Lights), Siaki Tui (Pure Sound), Patrick Murphy (Campion College), Gary Harding (Pirates) and Trey Crawford (Uawa). Picture by Paul Rickard

It’s up in the air at 5.30pm. Tonight’s tip-off between Pure Sound and Lytton High School will set in motion 11 weeks of club basketball action at the YMCA. Nine teams will contest the men’s championship on Mondays, and seven women’s crews will run the floor on Tuesdays. Only 1998, with 11 men’s and six women’s teams, had more players competing in a Gisborne Basketball Association season.

“It’s another night out, an opportunity for our kids to see their parents — their role models — on the court,” chairman Dwayne Tamatea said. “And this year we’re going to have zero tolerance of referee abuse.”

Blowing the whistle in Game 1 will be iconic GBA official Clifton Blumfield, with the Trey Crawford-led Uawa taking on resident battlers SE Systems before quickness meets flair in the game between East Coast and Gisborne Boys’ High School.

The last game on opening night is, in effect, a replay of the 2015 grand final with reigning champs Pirates up against City Lights. The latter are a new entity who, as the Dream Team, went down fighting 52-64 in the showpiece.

City Lights captain Scott Muncaster’s men will be without 6ft 8in Jasper Wills but will have a Westlake Boys’ High School teammate of former Rising Suns captain Shaquille Hohipa-Wilson on board. He is Luka Kablar, a power forward in the national secondary school champion teams of 2006 and 2009.

Pirates will miss the league’s “most valuable player” from last year, 6ft 6in Thomas Tindale.

Legendary Rising Suns forward Reggie Namana has left Pirates for Uawa but the title-holders will still field Monday night’s biggest frontcourt. Rongomai Smith and TK Moeke will be there, and new blood in the form of father and son John and Bailey Hutchings will give Pirates a shot in the arm.

The biggest loss to Muncaster’s team is skilful guard Kit Maile, often a scorer in the 30- and even 40-point bracket.

But all the teams have a new look. The departure of Ethan Lankshear to Wintec in Hamilton sees Levi Hohipa-Henry, who deputised when Lankshear was injured last season, become fulltime captain of a talented Lytton team. Lavelle Rangihuna, Tane Wills-Aranga, Raven Leach and Darius Waititi-Leach will also take up the fight for Lytton against Pure Sound, who are back under that banner for the first time since the turn of the century.

Siaki Tui, Billy Maxwell, Dale Hailey, Chad Rose, Adam Niwa, Wi Brown and Willie Brown, when in the mood, are a very hard team to beat. An on-song Hailey can put up 30-plus points, while Wi Brown and Rose are quick to punish any line-up that doesn’t rebound well at their own end of the court.

Pure Sound’s Jimmy Wilson, a strong guard and on-court presence, will be missed, though. He has a broken the little finger on his left hand. That hand guided the most thrilling shot in grand final history: a match-winning three-pointer with 0.3 seconds on the clock to give Hemaraz a 71-70 victory over SE Systems in 2010.

The Coast won’t be easy-beats either. Feisty hustler Josh Calles joins the fray alongside son Drae, Paul brothers Ezra and Brandon, and Hunter Mokomoko.

Basketball fans can expect the speed of the East Coast game to be a hundred miles an hour. Gisborne Boys’ High have at least two forwards in the 6ft 3in bracket — Connor Mitchell and Joe Te Maipi.

Seventeen-year-old standout Freemin Te Whare regularly scored 20-plus points a game last season. He also showed he could score in double-figures against even the most desperate opposition, as he did when he scored 10 points in a 49-45 win against YMP Black in last year’s championship round. Now he must balance those heroics for a new-look team with starting on the left-wing at first 15 rugby level.

SE Systems, who beat Boys’ High 52-46 in last year’s bottom-four final, return to the fray with Adrian Sparks, Ray Noble, Sean Pocock, Bronson Te Hau and Francis Reid, to name just a few of the veterans. Liam Greening drove the ball to the basket hard for Systems during the last two weeks in pre-competition and the physical nature of the fray between SES and Uawa will not be for the timid.

Uawa have tall timber in the form of Namana, powerhouse Harley Phillips and Rikki Kernohan, who at well over six feet retains the handling skills he learned as a slight guard in the college league.

Muncaster is a man on a mission.

“Pirates beat my team last year in the grand final, so I can’t wait,” he said.

Campion, under the guidance of Shane McClutchie, have the bye tonight, but captain Patrick Murphy’s promising group will see action next Monday.