What's On: The Women's Basketball Championship

Whether you have been caught up in the Breakers excitement or have never watched a basketball match before then your appetite will hopefully be whetted by the Women's Basketball Championship this weekend.

Starting today spectators have the chance to watch 18 matches free of charge at the Energy Events Centre.

The tournament is in its fifth year and is a joint venture between Basketball New Zealand and Associations, featuring teams from around the country. It consists of two round robin tournaments and a championship tournament. This weekend is the first round robin, the second is in Christchurch from May 3-5 and the finals are in Porirua from June 6-8.

The Rotorua Lady Vols are hoping to garner some keen home support - their first match is tonight at 7pm against The Good Home Taranaki Thunder.

"We'll try to go for three wins from four but it will be tight," said coach Darrell Pene.

"Everyone who comes down will see two games at a time, all the big provinces will be there. What we saw last year was a lot of full court pressure, strong playing, some really big ladies who know what they're doing."

Mr Pene said many of the provinces will welcome back players who have been studying in the US on basketball scholarships, so the quality of players is high.

The teams playing in the tournament as well as the Rotorua Lady Vols are Auckland Lady Hawks, Canterbury Wildcats, Harbour Breeze, Hutt Valley Flyers, Nelson Sparks, Oceana Goldrush Otago, Palmerston North Storm, Rotorua Lady Volcanoes, The Good Home Taranaki Thunder and Waikato Wizards.

The first match is Auckland v Harbour at 2pm. Games: Saturday from 9am to 7pm and on Sunday from 9am to 2pm.