Sports

SAMOA CUP BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT 2018

Basketball teams from Samoa, Australia and New Zealand came together for the 3 Day Samoa Cup Basketball Tournament in Auckland last week (3rd - 5th Jan 18). It's an annual tournament open to all Samoans to participate and for the first time since the tournament started 4 years ago, invitational teams representing the Cook Islands and Tonga (NZ based) participated.

Divisions included Under 16s, Under 19s and Open teams for both Men and Women held at Pulman Arena in South Auckland with the purpose of uniting Samoan players to compete against each other for spots in teams which will be selected in upcoming FIBA events and even to represent Samoa at the Commonwealth games should they qualify.

When the tournament first started 4 years ago there were only 7 teams competing, last year there were 20 and this year it more than doubled with over 40 teams entered boosted by overseas team entries - 5 teams came over from Samoa as well as teams from Samoa Basketball Australia - Victoria, NSW and Queensland.

Epic Basketball coach Sefo Aiono said that one of the reasons the tournament was put together was so they could identify Samoan kids that could be selected to play for their country.

"We know that the talent is built here in New Zealand, there is talent in Samoa but they don't have the same resources that we have here so we've created this tournament to find the talent. We need players that we can draw from for the next 10 years so we can try and compete in the Commonwealth Games & even the Olympics - thats the goal" says Sefo who is also one of the major sponsors of the tournament.

The U17s team he took to Guam came 4th but qualified to play in the Asia Cup for the first time ever. They can now build on that squad & feed them into the Mens teams. In 6 or 7 years if they qualify for the Commonwealth Games and make national teams they've got a bigger chance of being scouted & given basketball scholarships in the US and Canada.

"Samoa lets us know if they want players from us here in New Zealand. We can't just make up a 'Samoa' team & go, no - it has to come from Samoa and they can select from talent here in NZ and now the Australian Samoans want to give it a go too. If you want to play for Samoa, you have to register with Samoa Basketball before you're 16 so you can do your passport. Thats the FIBA rules."

Sefo said they'd like to try and expand the comp over the next 4 or 5 years and grow it more as he says he see's that our Poly kids aren't looked at enough by Basketball NZ. They get shunted aside because they may not have the money to get to a 5k comp in Australia and they don't have the funding.

"So we've built another route for the kids who don't make the New Zealand teams who ARE good enough but say can't pay the 5 grand, there's a Samoan avenue and another road for them"

Sefo, his son Dru & Epic Basketball team member Pafe Momoisea

Epic Basketball Open Mens team taking a breather

Justin Talauega, captain of the Open Mens Samoa Victoria team (from Melbourne) said that there aren't many stand alone Pacific Island comps in Australia and it's the first time they've put together an island team to compete in the Samoa Cup but it's been good for them seeing a lot of people from their culture competing.

"We had about 60 people try out and then our coach selected a 12 man team. Most of us have played together before as we've grown up playing rep in Australia and we started training together about 2 months prior to the comp. We didn't expect to come this far (Semi-Finals) but we're proud of the outcome."