Fine basketball start

Press, 24 May 1977, Page 34

Fine basketball start

In a splendid start to its representative programme, Canterbury comfortably won the men’s section of the Canadian Goodwill Trophy basketball tournament at Blenheim on Saturday and Sunday. The performance of the team was “really terrific”, the player-coach, Tim Guthrie, said yesterday. “The players passed the ball very well and there is so much shooting power. I think the team is even stronger than it was last year when we won the New Zealand title.” Canterbury defeated Marlborough, 117-48, in its first game before accounting for Hutt Valley, 70-63. Although there were only seven points

between the teams at the end, this was no indication of the respective merits of the two sides. Hutt Valley staged a strong recovery towards the end of the game, scoring 24 points to Canterbury’s seven in the last 6min. But Canterbury was so far ahead before this that Guthrie made no effort to halt the flow of goals to Hutt Valley. “We were 25 points better than Hutt Valley. I could see the lead slipping away but I did nothing — it didn’t worry me. The players had performed so well earlier that I didn’t want to make any changes. There was no possibility that we would be beaten,” Guthrie said.

Nevertheless, there was considerable satisfaction from the win because Hutt Valley was using two tall Americans, Dave Leslie and John Conrad. Conrad was named the outstanding forward at the last national tournament and scored 23 points. Leslie finished with 28. ~ in its final game, Canterbury defeated Nelson, 95-60. The award for the “best and fairest” player went to the new Canterbury captain, John Fairweather. The Canterbury women’s team did not fare so well. It defeated Marlborough, 10458, in its opening match but was beaten by Hutt Valley, 68-53, and Nelson.