Basketball: HBHS win secures middle ground

HBHS basketball coach Curtis Wooten takes stock.

Hastings Boys' High School basketball coach Curtis Wooten wasn't about to gloss over any performances after his troops won one of two games yesterday to find some middle ground.

"We're in the middle eight playoffs where we belong this year," Wooten said with a hollow laugh of resignation after crushing Selwyn College 88-44 in their second match last night during the New Zealand Secondary Schools' Basketball Championship in Palmerston North.

"But next year it'll be different because a lot of our players will be back," Wooten was quick to add as his young charges went down 87-60 to Palmerston North Boys' High School in the morning encounter.

"We're not a school that can recruit two to three players each year.

"I think we've overachieved already because a lot of people didn't think we were capable of making it to the nationals.

"Of those, many thought we'd finish in the bottom eight but we've actually made the middle eight so that's not bad," said the former Hawks coach who likened the middle eight playoffs to a second-tier competition within the nationals.

If Hastings Boys' High beat Melville College, of Hamilton, then they will be playing for 9-12 seedings.

"The key for us, obviously, is to beat Melville first," Wooten said.

In the win over Selwyn College, seven players got into double figures.