Tonga Men’s basketball team has qualified for the Pacific Games 2023, after five days of basketball matches at the FIBA Polynesian cup 2022, in Kaitaia, New Zealand from 1-5 November.

Tonga sealed their place at the 2023 Pacific Games with a 47-72 win over American Samoa, on the final day, with Stephen Paea, Viliami Foketi and Siale Bain-Vete all significantly contributing to the win. 

Tahiti were gold medallists with Tonga in silver and Samoa in bronze.

Point guard, Marcus Alipate, had a consistent tournament and is excited about the future of Tongan basketball as they are now moving forward to the Pacific Games 2023.

Marcus Alipate said, “we have lot of guys that are young, hungry and want to play and for us, to come from having six guys in 2018 to a squad of 10 here and a lot of the guys are young so it’s a blessing, and we also have a women’s team which is great, we are just trying to build each season and year.

“We have come a long way since 2018 and we have a lot of good guys and a leadership group and I’m just happy with a good team win and we are happy to finish the tournament like this.”

Alipate said that it felt good, as long as the team was winning, he was happy to play whatever role he had to play and is excited to see the future of Tongan basketball.

“It means a lot to qualify, beating a great team like Samoa and playing hard against Tahiti here this week, we are just really happy with the brand of basketball we are playing.  We won bronze in 2018 so it’s amazing to go one better this year and get silver”.

At the same time, the Tonga women’s basketball team did not have the outcome they hoped for, after losing all their game matches.

However, 21-year-old Lesila Finau was named one of the FIBA Polynesian Cup All-Star Five women, as a stand-out performer.

She has lifted her team and led the young Tongans on an innovative journey and improvement across the tournament, with an average of 26.8 points per game, 7.3 rebounds and 2.8 assists.