Colgate Uni v HB Invitational Basketball, Hastings
They are finding the basketball courts "very cold" but Josie Stockill says don't sweat it because her Colgate University teammates are warming up to the task just fine.
"They also think the New Zealanders are very physical," says Stockill before the American varsity team left Sky City Hotel in Auckland for Napier yesterday.
The Nicci Hays-coached Raiders tip off at 7.30pm against a Hawke's Bay Invitational women's side in an exhibition match at the Hastings Sports Centre today. Shane Brown, who coached Stockill through her age group years, is coaching the Bay side tonight.
From 1-2pm today, Stockill and her team will conduct a coaching clinic for 180 primary and intermediate schoolgirls.
"It's awesome to have such a huge turnout for Hawke's Bay, especially when it's girls only.
"It's a great thing for my team to be in New Zealand and they are loving it. I'm also very excited about showing them my hometown," says the 21-year-old neuroscience major who will graduate early next year, after she returns with her varsity team this Saturday to finish her college basketball as a senior.
Hays' team are here on the promise to honour a home game for scholarship student Stockill, a ritual they observe for all players.
The 1.9m Tall Fern's research reveals only Stanford University and Fordham University have played in New Zealand, but suspects Colgate may create history today as the first college women's team to shimmy and fake here, after arriving in Auckland last Thursday.
The Raiders comfortably beat a Counties Manukau side by a 40-plus margin on Saturday but the tourists were pushed into overtime in a 74-64 victory over Harbour Breeze on Sunday.
During their tour here, results are irrelevant to exposing freshman and sophomores (underclass students as opposed to upperclass juniors and seniors).
They have had to adapt to some changes, such as the number of players on the free-throw line as well as becoming accustomed to the 24-second stop clock in offence, as opposed to 30 in the US.
Stockill took her teammates to a pub in downtown Auckland on Saturday night to watch the start of the All Blacks v Wallabies rugby test match.
"They loved seeing the haka but a few minutes later the jetlag kicked in so we all went off to bed."
The team stopped at Taupo yesterday to bungy jump and have a dip in the hot springs before wending their way to the Stockills' home for a barbecue.
Tall Ferns coach Kennedy Kereama late last month omitted Stockill and Jacinta Beckley from his squad of 14 for the William Jones Cup in Taiwan, but the former Napier Girls' High School pupil says she has put the disappointment aside to strive towards securing her position.
However, the pair rejoined the squad for the three losing tests against Japan in Ashburton and Christchurch last week in what was the first home series, apart from the Oceania, in a decade.
The last time the Tall Ferns hosted a nation in a series, bar the Australian Opals, was India in 2006.
The Japanese series is a platform to build towards qualifying directly for the Rio Olympics next year, provided they eclipse the Opals in Melbourne and Tauranga on August 15 and August 17.
"I'm definitely keen to fight to win my way back when I get the chance," she says, revealing she and Beckley worked tirelessly in Wellington on aspects of play Kereama wanted them to polish.
"It was great to have my parents come to the second game [against Japan] on Friday and the atmosphere there in a packed stadium was just great."
The Japanese, she says, were agile and highly adroit so they provided an ideal build-up for the Opals.
"Japan, on the way here, beat Australia on the buzzer so it's been a great preparation."