By JULIE ASH
North Harbour have the chance to make history this weekend and win their first national women's basketball title.
But first, they have to overcome challenges from Wellington, Canterbury and Nelson.
North Harbour's best result in the national competition was two years ago, when they finished fourth.
For this year's finals
weekend, which is being held in Wellington and Porirua, they are seeded third behind Wellington and Canterbury.
Wellington have beaten North Harbour four times this season, and North Harbour assistant coach Anthony Corban believes the capital side will be the team to beat.
"Wellington have got Tall Ferns Gina Farmer and Rebecca Cotton and a great guard in Kim Wielens," he said. "The team work around those players and they all combine well.
"We are going in with a young side and are going out there to give it 100 per cent."
This year's national competition had only seven teams and was divided into northern and southern conferences.
The top couple of teams in each conference qualified for the finals. They play a round-robin competition starting this morning to decide the top two sides, who will meet in the final tomorrow night.
Missing from the finals are defending champions the Otago Breakers.
Otago, who have won the competition for the past two years, had to forfeit a match against West Coast which cost them a place in the finals.
They got the start time wrong because they followed a draft copy of the draw.
Otago believed the match started at noon when, in fact, it began at 10 am.
Basketball rules say teams must be on the court within 15 minutes of the scheduled start time.
Otago arrived at 10.20 am, still in the dark over the change.
Otago administrator Aileen Solomon said they did not get a final copy of the draw.
"We had followed the draft copy all season and had always been advised of changes, except for the West Coast match," she said.
Otago put in a protest to Basketball New Zealand which was rejected. An appeal was also unsuccessful.
Basketball New Zealand women's league administrator Bill Eldred said it was a difficult situation, but rules were not made to be broken.
'The didn't show up within the 15 minutes allocated time and that is the rule."
"They argued that it was the time on the draft draw, but that was thrown out because they had been e-mailed a final draw.
"It's tough and everyone is sympathetic towards them."
