TASMANIA'S under-20 basketball team fell agonisingly short of making history last night after losing the gold medal play-off at the national under-20 basketball championships in Melbourne against Victoria by one point.
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In a high quality game, the Tassie underdogs pushed the more-fancied, undefeated Victorian favourites all the way to the final buzzer before going down 105-104, in a heart-breaking result, in Tasmania's first grand final at the nationals in 30 years.
Four points was the biggest margin separating the two teams in a cliff-hanger of a final with the big V leading 21-19 after the first quarter.
Tasmania had the better of the second quarter shooting 23 points to 17 to grab a 42-38 advantage at half-time.
Victoria pushed back hard in the third term outscoring Tassie 25-20 to lead 63-62 at the final change and a 13-13 final quarter saw the Victorians with their noses in front by one solitary point at full-time.
Tasmanian captain Tanner Krebs continued his outstanding form for the tournament with a game-high 31 points and five rebounds.
Wynyard's Kyle Clark shot 27 points and had eight rebounds, Lachlan Barker 22 points and five rebounds and Joe Chilcott 20 and 12.
Basketball Tasmania chief executive officer Chris McCoy said reaching the gold medal play-off and coming away with a silver medal was a fantastic result for the state and testimony to its development program.
"It's our best-ever finish in the under-20s in the history of Tassie basketball and it at least equals our best-ever finish in any grade," McCoy said.
"I think it was 1984 that we finished with a silver medal in the under-16s.
"We had the opportunity to win our first gold ever but we managed to tie the silver from 1984."
Tasmania went through the preliminary rounds with a 4-2 record which included a 25-point loss to NSW which they turned around in their semi-final victory.
McCoy said the Tasmanian team gelled very well throughout the tournament with the two stars in Krebs and Clark who are both members of the Australian under-19 Emus side.
"The next tier have developed well with the likes of Joe Chilcott, Cameron Brown and Lachlan Barker who have matured as players and really stepped up with contributions off the bench from Tevita Finau and Sam Youl."
