It may be a case of out of the bag and into the basket for the Taylor Hawks, with a new matchwinner unveiled just two matches into the new season’s national men’s basketball league.
New coach Sam Gruggen, coming from the Cairns Taipans in the ANBL, said he became aware of Keanu Rasmussen as an Under 16 and Under 18 player in South Australia. He said Rasmussen was a “very exciting talent” who appeared to have “slipped under the radar” until the Hawks grabbed him in rebuilding a team around the remnants of the roster that almost took the franchise to the Sal’s NBL final last season.
“I kept quiet,” Gruggen confessed, but conceded the 1.87m point guard’s 35-point contribution in Sunday’s 107-80 hammering of the Southland Sharks at Taradale’s Pettigrew Green Arena would have set tongues wagging early in the 20-round competition.
Rasmussen had scored 23 points on his Hawks debut in a 70-91 loss to league newcomers Whai in Tauranga on March 28. His latest effort and the return of Tall Black Jordan Ngatai from Finland for a second season with the Hawks bring new interest to the next match, as the side cross the border to play Manawatu Jets in Palmerston North.
Another matter Gruggen kept in the bag was knowing Rasmussen had a New Zealand connection, which the player explains is that his dad was born in Auckland and grew up in Hamilton.
Rasmussen had never been to Hawke’s Bay until after he’d signed, but says: “I moved up with my partner, Mikayla, and we’ve been loving it. It’s a beautiful spot and the people have been really good to us. The atmosphere is great, it’s a really young and new team, but we have all really just clicked and come together.”
It could have been different, after the 21-point loss in week one, and Rasmussen said: “It was a disappointing result and not what we wanted to start the season. But I think everyone was still very upbeat. We knew we didn’t play our best brand of basketball and we didn’t let it get us down.”
Down 18-24 at the end of the first quarter on Sunday the Hawks were looking at a similar demise. However, Rasmussen had other ideas and with five three-pointers in 14 minutes from 2m 24s before halftime to 1m 15s into the final quarter, he had the Hawks in front 45-43 at halftime, bolting to a 73-58 lead going into the final 10 minutes, and cruising to a 27-point victory.
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