Harbour basketball wishes to congratulate Mitchell Dance, Taine Murray and Jono Janssen on their selection for the New Zealand Tall Blacks.

All three former Harbour representatives have been selected to play for the Tall Blacks, to take on Australia in Cairns this Saturday night, in a FIBA Asia Cup Qualifying fixture.

Due to a combination of quarantine restrictions and the lack of MIQ beds for New Zealand based players, and the uncertainty around the Australian NBL’s ever changing schedule, Tall Blacks Head Coach Pero Cameron was forced to narrow his selection to eligible players based in Australia.

152 test veteran Mika Vukona will captain the side with Taine Murray the only other capped player.

Taine, currently based in Australia with the Sky Sport Breakers, is the only other capped player having debuted as an 18-year-old against Canada in 2019.

Taine was named to the Tournament Team at the 2019 U19 National Championships after helping Harbour win the title 

A member of the Rosmini College team that won back to back Schick Secondary Schools National Championships in 2017 and 2018. 

His notable performances for Harbour and Rosmini have earned Taine a 4-year scholarship at the University of Virginia commencing in August.

After playing for Taranaki Mountain Airs in the 2020 Sal’s NBL Mitch has recently signed with Tasmanian club Somerset Heat.

Mitch won a plethora of national titles with both Harbour and Rosmini College winning Schick Secondary Schools National championships in 2017 and 2018 (he was selected MVP at both championships) and numerous age-group titles.

On the international stage he top scored for New Zealand at the 2018 FIBA U17 World Cup in Argentina averaging 15.6 points per game and the following year he played for NZ U18 Men at the FIBA 3x3 Asia Cup in Malaysia.

Jono is probably the least well known of the trio as his family moved to Queensland soon after he finished at Northcross Intermediate. Prior to that he had played junior representative basketball for Harbour.

Following high school Jono played at Cleveland State University before moving to Hawaii Pacific University. In 2017 he helped Hawaii Pacific win the PacWest Conference title playing 80 games for the Sharks in three seasons.

In 2019 Jono helped the Canterbury Rams to the NBL semi-finals and in 2020 he averaged 16.1 points and 10.2 rebounds per game for Sunshine Coast Phoenix helping them to the semi-finals of the Queensland State League.

“This is an extraordinary game in what is an extraordinary time,” remarked Cameron.

“We might not be playing at home, but we were able to find plenty of home in Australia thanks to these 12 guys,” he added.

We can’t wait to see Mitch leading the haka!

Game details

• Tall Blacks v Australian Boomers
• Venue: Cairns Pop-up Arena
• Tip Off: 6:30pm Local Time (9:30pm NZT)
• Broadcaster: Māori Television