New Zealand's success in qualifying for its third successive world basketball championships is an example of one of the country's lesser sports surviving against the odds.
In the past sports that have had one shot at the highest level have failed to build on it, hockey post-1976 and football post-1982, remain classic examples but basketball has defied New Zealand convention and the national men's side will open their latest campaign on Sunday against Lithuania at 12.50am on Sunday.
Tall Blacks assistant coach at the world championships Chris Tupu was one who played through the transition era and now finds himself benefiting as a result of the continuity of success that has been achieved.
Funding from Sparc has been critical in gaining international exposure allowing New Zealand to participate at world championship and Olympic Games level.
The vitality of that support could be seen from the female national side which finished eighth at the Athens Games in 2004 but which barely had a programme now.
"It's critical for our development that we play not just Australia but these European teams and go on these tours to Europe, especially, and get these warm-up games not only in the years leading up to the world champs but also in those off-years where it is a chance for us to blood those other young players," he said.
Tupu was a participant in the tour which started it all for the side, after years of basketball poverty, times when the players virtually paid for their own playing shirts and often for travel that was available.
In 1998-99 a tour was organised which saw the side exposed to European basketball for the first time with games in Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands where the side played in the annual Haarlem tournament and lost the final to Brazil after beating a top Italian club team and Cuba.
"And we got results. We had a big win against Cuba, we went close to Brazil and it wasn't until after that tour and playing these guys that we realised we could compete," he said.
Then Croatia toured New Zealand for a competitive series, and Tupu said the benefits of playing against those sides became obvious. A tour to Japan also followed where New Zealand won its first off-shore based Test series.
"What we're seeing now 10 years down the track is how important it is that we continue to get those games," he said.
What had been significant about the first tour was that it prepared New Zealand for the Olympic Games which because they were held in Sydney virtually assured New Zealand of representation for the region as Australia qualified automatically as host.
Then New Zealand built on that effort by qualifying for the 2002 World Championships.
That experience was a happy confluence, and an unprecedented opportunity for New Zealand, of players with ability and opportunity.
Not only was Pero Cameron in his pomp, but Dillon Boucher had emerged, Mark Dickel had been playing in the US college system and in Europe, Kirk Penney was in the American system, Phill Jones was at his peak, Sean Marks had NBA exposure.
"That was a special group and it is not every year that a group like that comes together. And they had a coach in Tab Baldwin and Nenad [present coach Vucinic] who really instilled that belief that they could beat anybody," he