Tall Blacks power forward Craig Bradshaw is eagerly awaiting his opportunity to create some Kiwi basketball history at this year's World Basketball Championships in Turkey.
Twenty-seven-year-old Bradshaw was 19, but remembers fondly watching from the couch when the Tall Blacks stunned the world with their fourth place finish at the 2002 World Champs in Indianapolis, America. Now he can’t wait for the chance to cement his name amongst those kiwi legends.
Through to the final 16 for the third time in a row New Zealand is already being compared to the 2002 side but Bradshaw believes, 'It's time New Zealand had another chapter in our basketball history'.
"Those guys did an awesome job putting New Zealand on the basketball map but it's a new team now and a new chance to show what we can do," Bradshaw said.
Bradshaw was a part of the 2006 team that placed ninth but feels with the mix of players they have now, their maturity and the fact they've all played so much basketball together is the main contributing factor to the Tall Blacks results so far in the tournament and strongly believes they can go all the way.
Bradshaw plies his trade in the Australasian NBL competition for the Gold Coast Blaze and is one of the only players in this year's Tall Blacks that doesn't play for the Breakers or in New Zealand's local NBL.
But before the Tall Blacks can begin to look achieving a better result than that in 2002 they must topple Russia early Tuesday morning (NZT) to advance to the quarter finals. New Zealand has played Russia twice in the last month as a part of their build-up to the world champs - firstly losing by 13 points but winning by two in the second.
Bradshaw's team-mate and point guard Lindsay Tait echoed his thoughts on creating history and although excited by the prospect was a little more diplomatic in his approach to the future.
"Russia is a team that will punish you if you take your foot off the pedal for just a second," Tait said.
"They only just lost to Turkey in pool play, just one loss in five games, it shows they have come a long way in a month. It's going to be a tough hill to climb," said Tait.
If New Zealand beat Russia they will advance to the quarter-finals and more than likely face the USA who are five from five in the tournament so far finishing top of their pool. The USA takes on Angola in the game before the Tall Blacks clash with Russia.