Basketball On The Internet.

TAURANGA is a beautiful New Zealand seaside town, the country's fifth largest city with 127,000 people and white, coastal surf beaches lazily beckoning holidaymakers.

It's a half-hour flight from Auckland by crop-duster but I'm guessing it would be an especially scenic trip by road.

I hear it's only about an hour or so's drive to Rotorua too, one of the few places in the world where the CBD and an SBD are easily confused.

Tonight, Brendan Joyce's young Opals head to ASB Arena, in the shadow of ASB Stadium in a sporting precinct many across Australia would envy for its scope and quality.

QUEENSLAND? Water to one side, cafes to the right. Tauranga feels like home.

It's a facility to take your breath away and where Australia's Under-17s will be in action as a double-header with the Opals.

There's posters on the walls advertising a chance for coaching clincs with New Zealand's NBA-based young star centre Steve Adams, the missing link in this Oceania Series from the Tall Blacks team which finds itelf one down and 12 in arrears of the Boomers they host tomorrow in Wellington.

VACATION PARADISE? The reverse angle. Tauranga even has shades of Waikiki.

Adams is a star here and so he should be.

But tonight is about the Opals.

There will be a lot of Kiwis here tonight, yelling their hearts out for their beloved Tall Ferns.

But there won't be 15,062.

ASB ARENA, TAURANGA: Preparations for tonight's Oceania Game 2.

Australia weathered the emotion of that. It will need to weather a passionate, loud home crowd cheering against it tonight.

And when it does, it will confirm its place in the draw at the Rio Olympics, leaving this lovely town with the happiest of memories.

Online

Opals ahead of G2: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/basketball/australian-opals-primed-to-book-olympic-rio-spot-after-downing-tall-ferns/story-fni2u9cl-1227485726525