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Cell

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Everything posted by Cell

  1. Porter Jr played high school in Seattle this past season with his Dad coaching at UW
  2. I wasnt able to watch Tai's senior night but its been great to see his career unfold. He has been resilient and done things the right way, trusting the process. Funny story. Tai is 17 and playing on the New Zealand Breakers pro team. He is whats called a development player and only plays as much as a walk on. One game the team is up big with only a minute to go and Tai gets subbed in. The team has a promotion where if they score 100 points the whole crowd gets free Burger King. The team is currently on 98 points. Long story short Tai ends up with the ball on a fast break, nobody in front of him. He rises up to dunk it...and then after 2 hours sitting on the bench puts it right into the bottom of the rim and costs 7000 people free burgers. I think he might have even put a tweet out jokingly apologising. Perhaps that traumatised him into barely dunking his college career. Gonna miss seeing him play for the huskers.
  3. Definitely not. I actually visit the site most days and follow along during games. I think Tai is a prime example of why we need to remember the guys on the team are just kids and that just because they will have bad games or bad seasons it doesnt make them bad players.
  4. Ive been able to find online streams for about half of his games and have listened to Kent P on most of the others. Its been great to see him succeeding. Its scary how similar he is playing now to how he did as a 16/17 year old back here, slashing to the hoop and pushing the ball in transition.
  5. The thing with the haka is it needs to be done properly to avoid disrespecting its tradition. At my high school in New Zealand we would practise the haka many times before any event where the school would need to perform one. Getting the actions and pronouncing Maori words right is pretty important to doing it justice so the school Maori language teacher would make sure it was up to a standard and teach us of the meaning behind it. A blackout would be a cool way to celebrate Tai on senior night. Im sure he would appreciate it.
  6. The way Tai has persevered has been great, you can even just look back to the comments on here from the Villanova game to see how easy it would have been for him to give it up. To qualify for the Olympics the NZ national team has to win a 6 team tournament in the Philippines in July. If Tai wants to play he will definitely make the team. He would get to go up against Tony Parker and France in the group stage, as well as potentially Canada if they advance to the next round.
  7. Hey I never left! Im always here just lurking in the background. Ive been watching as many games as possible and from an outsiders view you guys should be real excited with some of the pieces that are going to be around for the next few years
  8. Just for contrast in New Zealand the shot clock is used for basically all competitive games for players older than around 13. The international standard of 24 seconds is used and while maybe some of the younger players could benefit from a longer limit I think in general 24 seconds is fine for most teams and levels. Also while occasionally there are issues with finding a suitable person to operate the clock I would say 99% of games would have no controversy surrounding the shot clock so this should not be an argument against its implementation.
  9. Why would Hammond put himself in that position? Clearly he should have taken the full elbow to the face instead of moving back
  10. I saw that and I'm sure that guy is from New Zealand. I think that some people in NZ would assume that Tai should be playing and particularly scoring alot better than he is based upon how he played before he went to Nebraska. It's very easy to blame a coach or a system for this. I think maybe there is merit in the idea that had he gone to a smaller school (eg Hawaii) he would have been a primary option and this would benefit his game. I think however in the long term playing in the higher level environment and having greater daily competition will make his draft stock higher than being a star at a smaller school. I like the idea of bringing Tai off the bench, it should allow him to play his natural game a little more and this will allow him to transition into a greater role once Terran/Shavon/Walt leave. Long story short, I don't think there is any need for Tai to panic and transfer. It will take time, he has had so many adjustments to make that it would be stupid to think it was all going to go right as a freshman.
  11. What are people in New Zealand saying about the Bo Pelini firing? "Who?"
  12. If its on my TV in New Zealand I'd hope its on your guys screens in Nebraska
  13. Was in the news in NZ today that he is being recruited by Kentucky, Wake Forrest, Texas and Utah aswell as many others. Hawaii, St Marys and Pitt have all watched him in Auckland. Nebraska may be in on him but were not among the named teams Is a big strong kid that is actually pretty skilful. Not the most athletic player but can set great screens, pass out of the post and finish around the rim. I think he has a good chance to be the real deal and is following a similar path to Webster in his lead up to college. He might be the first player from NZ to ever get the attention of big time schools like Kentucky. Mostly even the top NZ players go to mid-major or the lower big conference schools.
  14. Tai played great vs Ukraine. He rebounded really well and got to the hoop several times but just needs to improve on his finishing. He even posted up former NBA player Pooh Jeter in the 1st Quarter and scored. Still makes the occasionally bad decision with a shot or a pass, but he is getting better and is obviously playing against some pretty good players.
  15. Video of the last 5 minutes from the New Zealand vs Serbia game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bh5MtGYID_k Looks like Tai may be the starting point guard for the World Cup..
  16. The last time a point guard from down under played against the USA in the world championships while still in college was Patty Mills. He went off in that game and it was a spring board for his future. Let's hope history repeats itself. Also Matthew Dellavedova capitalised on his performance at London in 2012 into a roster spot with the Cavs. Tai will either be the starting PG or will play decent minutes in a back up role. As long as he keeps his turnover count down he should play. Getting to go up against NBA calibre opposition will be great preparation for next season.
  17. Just out of curiosity, do you know when the Tall Blacks qualified for the tournament? Also, if you see anything about an internet stream, please post here. Keep us posted! Tall Blacks qualified for the World Cup automatically since the Oceania region gets 2 automatic qualifying spots and Australia and New Zealand are the only 2 teams that apply. Technically all New Zealand had to do was show up last year and play Australia twice in the FIBA Oceania series. There is a good chance there will be an internet stream somewhere given Korea is playing, will post it here if I see one.
  18. I'm looking forward to seeing Tai play for the national team next week, will be interesting to see how he has developed since the tourney. The New Zealand team will be reasonably solid (for a NZ team), there are only a couple players missing from the squad, one being Steven Adams and another being Rueben Te Rangi who would be a pretty good college player but is in trouble with the law at the moment. The squad of 17 has several young guys in there for development (including incoming freshman at New Mexico and Virginia). There is also a 16 year old kid on the team who I believe is in the class of 2016, he is 6'9 and being recruited by some high level colleges already. South Korea aren't a great team and New Zealand should beat them pretty convincingly. Tai will likely be the 2nd or 3rd guard of the bench, but will still get solid minutes. Happy to have something to contribute again, will let you know how Tai plays.
  19. I would like to see Tai find his scoring touch. The player ive seen play at Nebraska is a total different player to the Tai I saw in New Zealand. Would like to see him attack the hoop more often and hit his outside shots. Also you guys probably didn't see it but the draw for the 2014 Basketball World Cup was made today and New Zealand got put in the same pool as the USA. Pretty cool that if Tai makes the NZ team he will get a chance to play some top NBA players.
  20. Congrats on getting the big win Huskers! I didn't get to watch the game but I was up at 6am on January 4th to watch OSU beat Nebraska by 31, the revenge tastes sweet.
  21. He shot 65.6% in the 2013 New Zealand National League season. But ive seen him at junior national tournaments and he has usually been a pretty good foul shooter. I think that while he is clearly a confident kid, he might still be hung up on having 10,000+ people watch him shoot his free throws. Not that it makes him nervous as such, but changes his shot slightly. I'm guessing that with some time his percentages will rise (something that has happended with other New Zealanders playing college ball),
  22. I defiantly caught the stream and thought the whole event was pretty cool. Some of my thoughts were... - The crowd seemed pretty good for a preseason scrimmage. I hadn't seen a game at Nebraska before but it seems like if the team wins a few games the environment could get pretty special. - Early on the play was errrr less than impressive, but obviously there is alot of different reasons that could be put down to. As the game went on the shooting got alot better -Pitchford was definatly one of the standouts and should get plenty of minutes this year -Hawkins and Fuller look like they will turn into solid contributers -Smith was impressive to me, showed alot of promise and will be a key role player -Shields going down was scary (even for me!), not sure how that happens in a scrimmage set up for the fans -Webster looks as confident as I remember. I thought he passed well and made some nice moves. His shots didn't really fall tonight but otherwise I feel he showed what he will bring. -The intensity of the whole scrimmage was still pretty slow, the offense was relatively stagnant and players seemed to settle for shots. Did I hear that they had already practiced for a couple hours before hand? that would seem to explain alot Looking forward to the season even more now!
  23. I don't think that Tai and Exum have actually played against each other at any tournaments. Back in 2011 they would have faced off with each other in the U/17s, but Tai did not play for New Zealand, instead going to Italy to play in the World Youth 3v3 Champs (which NZ won). In 2012 there was a little debate as to who was better (just after Tai played well for the NZ senior mens team), however I think now Exum has solidified himself as the better prospect. Exum is longer and more athletic, which he makes full use of in his game. I get the feeling that in his freshman year you can probably expect Tai to turn the ball over a bit and he may be a streaky shooter....time will tell! On Topic: The Huskers have 0.0% chance of getting Simmons
  24. Salt only played about 3 minutes. It is a huge step up for him to be going against the likes of David Andersen (former NBA player) and Luke Nevill (former MWC player of the year). Salt actually only made the team due to 3 other big men making themselves unavailable. He does look like a player that in 3-5 years could be a solid international player for New Zealand as a back up big man for Steven Adams. He was interviewed on television last week here and said he is being recruited by Pittsburgh, Wake Forrest, St Marys and St Louis.
  25. Mentioned Salt over in another thread a while ago http://board.huskerhoopscentral.com/topic/1746-another-tai-thread/ He was on the same High School team as Tai was last year and has been involved with the New Zealand breakers pro team for a while now. Also he went at 8.6ppg and 5.4rpg for the Super City Rangers team that played in the New Zealand National League. I could see him ending up at a college on the level of Nebraska, having Tai there surely couldn't hurt your chances in getting him.
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