IF CROWD involvement is important in sport, the Warwick Wildcats are in for a good season.

The championship court at WIRAC was surrounded by a crowd of 300 on Saturday night, with fans also using the upstairs area.

The Toowoomba Mountaineers play in the Queensland Basketball League and Warwick is a new team in the development (D) league, however the local team stood up well to their more fancied rivals.

While Warwick trailed throughout, it was within striking distance after the first quarter of the game.

DJ Cremasco harbours an ambition to play in the QBL and showed he might achieve it with a strong start to the game.

While coach Jeff Clark was full of praise for all his young players, Kevin Globio received plenty of cheers when he stayed man-on-man on players half as big as the Warwick tyro.

Globio finished with 10 points in the Warwick 158-73 loss.

Michael McDaniel trialled for the Dallas Mavericks in the United States before starring at many levels in United States and Australian basketball.

He was certainly one of the hometown favourites, especially when he landed two three-pointers early in the second half.

Coach Clark said the result could have been closer if he used more zone defence to slow the Mountaineers scoring.

"I wanted to use the game to give the young fellows experience against the Mountaineers," he said.

"Some of the Mountaineers' plays were totally new to our boys."

The Wildcats lost a trial against Logan yesterday and have eight more trials organised before the season starts.

The half-time entertainment was a shooting challenge between representatives of game sponsors, Warwick Solar Panels, and community representative Tracy Vellacott and Cr Neil Meiklejohn.