Flying the coop - Hawks rookies picked up by US colleges

Ezrah Eagle, in the 2024 Under 18 Asia Cup, and now destined to be one of at least six Hawke's Bay players in American college basketball next year. Photo / Basketball NZ

The Hawke’s Bay Hawks changing room for 2026 might well look like summer camp for American college basketballers as the club thinks about how it can accommodate a string of teenagers now signed with schools in the US.

The Hawks’ 2025 Sals NBL and Rapid League roster included six Napier and Hastings teenagers who have already joined or are about to join US colleges with the dream of following Steven Adams and a handful of other New Zealanders who have made it into the American NBA.

They are Kahuranaki Treacher and Ezrah Eagle, who’ve come through Hastings Boys’ High School and were Junior Tall Blacks teammates, and Jackson Ball, Maz Taylor, Harry Keighley and Ryder Moore, from Napier BHS.

Treacher, 19, led the way, picking up a sports scholarship at Auckland Grammar School, before heading to St Alban’s School in Washington DC, on the way to his recently completed first season with Eastern Arizona College.

Eagle, also 19, who left HBHS to take up a sports scholarship with Dilworth School in Auckland and became its deputy head prefect last year, is off to Whitman College, in Walla Walla, Washington State.

Ball, 17, is in his last year at Napier BHS, but this year became one of the youngest-ever Tall Blacks national senior men’s representatives and has played two world tournaments for New Zealand age-group sides. He became a regular Hawk this year, starting with 76 points in the first two NBL games. Deputy head prefect at school, he will be joining Illawarra Hawks in the Australian NBL and be back with the HB Hawks for the 2026 season before joining the Wisconsin Badgers in the US.

Taylor, who turns 19 in next month, is a nephew of Craig Daly, who played 18 seasons with the Hawks, and heads for Utah Prep Academy, Keighley, 17, has committed to Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and Moore, 19, has committed to Nobel University, Los Angeles.

Depending on negotiations, players could be available for later parts of the 2026 NBL when not required by their schools.

Daly, who has spent a lifetime in basketball, including 18 seasons as a Hawk in the NBL, says historically the chances for New Zealand players to get into the American basketball system were rare, and usually the domain of players who had already become Tall Blacks.

He didn’t get the chance, although he says he got close as a track and field athlete.

He says the opportunities have blossomed amid greater exposure at world tournaments and from the video clips and contacts, including New Zealand contacts in the US, among them former NBA player Kirk Penney (now coaching at Wisconsin) and one-time NBA draft-lister Mark Dickel (now coaching at Utah).