Boys’ basketball team riding high
The Lake Taupō Basketball Under 16 boys’ team.
Basketball coach Darryl (Daz) Karipa may not be sure how far his 2025 Lake Taupō Basketball Under 16 boys’ team will get in their basketball journey but he’s hoping they will have developed assured, confident personalities along the way.
By Chris Marshall
In finishing fourth over King’s Birthday Weekend in the premier division at the Mid North Regional Championship, the team has qualified for the Foot Locker U16 Nationals, in Wellington, July 8 – 11.
The tournament is for aspiring players who are considering prioritising basketball, giving them the opportunity to compete against top players from every region.
They would certainly be doing that, said Karipa with teams from Canterbury, Otago, Auckland, Waikato, North Harbour.
“The mammoth thing for me is that we're the first boys’ team from Taupō to ever qualify for nationals.”
Karipa, whose wife Jamie-Lee manages the team, is not daunted by the size of the player pool other regions can draw on, or the likely height of their team members.
“One of our boys is six foot seven. You know, it's basketball. The sport of giants. You can't go in with a team full of five-foot fivers.”
Karipa, who has been working with a core group of the team for years, initially roped in by his son Taiari, knows this will be a good chance at exposure for his young team, as the step up to under 18s in future will shorten their chances of qualifying.
“I said to the boys we've just got to be there and have a bit of fun and enjoy it. If we can manage a couple of wins that’ll be good for us.”
The students from Taupō-nui-a-Tia College will be in a ‘pool of death’ with some of the top qualifiers, he said.
“We don't care, we're going, but it also will increase our chances of actually having a televised game because we’re up against some of the best... If we can snitch a bit of airtime as well, that'll be good. We'll go there with smiles and create a few small goals for ourselves. We’re obviously not going to go there and win it. But that's not what we're about to be fair. Our goal was to qualify.”
Building character amongst his charges was important for him, said Karipa, who has followed a style of coaching that he got as a teenage player at St John’s College in Hamilton where culture was the first thing to get right.
“I'm here to build good, constructive characters, you know, it's not just about basketball, basketball is just the way I do it. So, my hope is that they all finish high school, and go on to do bigger and better things and they're just good people.”
And using regional representative tournaments to get more games against tough opposition has had the double bonus of building character, skill and a shot on the nationals stage.
“You beat a team here, you beat a team there… You make them believe. And next minute, good things happen. This is just the progression of all our hard work. To be honest, I was surprised we've got to where we are in such a short time. Three years is not long.”
His tough approach to coaching seemed to have paid off.
“But they keep coming back, so I'm not scaring them off… We're getting to that point now where I probably don't need to be as hard. We've all proved to ourselves that we can do it. And now it's just about fine tuning.”
Karipa, who juggles coaching with fulltime work for the Taupō District Council, has a busy time ahead with other tournaments both before and after the nationals – a 3x3 Matariki Tournament in Rotorua in late June and secondary school qualifiers for the NZSS basketball tournament in October.
“Then we finish off with a tournament in Auckland called the Slam, using that club-based tournament to build the Lake City brand.”