Basketball New Zealand

Kirk Penney (Photosport)

Marc Hinton, Fairfax
Turns out Kirk Penney can pop questions like he can jumpers. Now he just needs to come up with some answers for his desperate Burger King NZ Breakers.

It’s been a funny old time for Penney since Christmas. The 29-year-old Tall Blacks and Breakers skipper asked long-time girlfriend Audra Jeffers to marry him on Boxing Day, got the response he wanted, and then hasn’t been able to take a trick since.

Since Penney’s romantic rendezvous on Waiheke Island with his beach volleyball-playing American college sweetheart, the Breakers have lost four straight games and now teeter on the brink of missing out on the Australian NBL playoffs for the first time in three seasons.

For a team that was unanimously picked as title favourites pre-season, and by their own admission had a squad highly capable of going all the way, it’s been a bitterly disappointing freefall. They’ve lost their last four straight and seven of their previous nine.

It’s fair to say Penney, who’s over the moon about his pending nuptials, is going through some mixed emotions. On the one hand his private life is bliss; on the other his work one is turning to custard.

Still, the Breakers aren’t quite done yet and if they can win five of their last six games, they could still squeeze into the playoffs. That run starts tomorrow night against the Adelaide 36ers, and the league MVP isn’t giving up hope that he and his team-mates can squeeze out of the tight spot they find themselves in.

“Life is great right now,” he reflects. “Obviously on the basketball court we would have liked to have won more games. That’s been frustrating.”

Penney manages a smile when he’s asked to compare the nerves of popping the big question with, say, the anxiety of having to make two free-throws to win a game, or take the last shot when you’re one down.

“I was pretty nervous,” he said of his engagement. “We were over on Waiheke Island, sitting in a romantic spot and the ring was next to me for about an hour. I was constantly checking on it till the time came.

“It’s a neat butterfly feeling that you look back on and really enjoy. Her reaction in particular was pretty overwhelming - just a lot of happiness.”

Penney says it’s exciting to finally be engaged, having known Jeffers since her days as a volleyball star at Wisconsin, but he admits the hoops has been less rewarding of late.
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“We’ve played so well on so many occasions and put ourselves in perfect positions to win the game and then feel it trickle through our hands.”

Last Thursday the Breakers blew a 17-point fourth quarter lead to lose 89-94 to the Melbourne Tigers the fourth time they’ve coughed up double-digits in the final term. All told they’ve rolled over seven times this campaign when they’ve had significant leads on the run home.

“We need to push all those close games, all that uncertainty out of our minds,” said Penney yesterday. “We have to start again. There are six games left, and we’ve got to just stop worrying about the rest of the league, and just try to take care of a win.

“If we can get back in the winner’s circle and get some confidence back, hopefully we can breed from that.”

Just how focused Penney is on fighting out of their current plight was indicated when he was asked about his pending place atop the Breakers’ all-time scoring chart. He is 25 behind Aaron Olson.

“Oh, I didn’t know that,” he said. “It’s pretty neat. But to be honest it’s pretty small in the shadow of what we’re trying to do here.”

The one thing Penney does know is that the time for talking is over. No more crisis meetings, no more rousing speeches. It’s action, or bust.

“I think that time was over a few weeks ago and we all realise that. We just want to sniff a little bit of victory and see how it feels.

“We’ve got to beat Adelaide, then reassess as the chips fall as they do around the league.”

News that the 36ers were likely coming without star forward Adam Ballinger even failed to crack Penney’s game face. “That’s a big loss for them but it doesn’t matter. We just need to play aggressively and in particularly play aggressively at the end of the game.”

The Breakers follow up tomorrow’s NSEC clash against the 36ers with a visit to the Gold Coast Blaze on Saturday. Their season, if not their best player’s happiness, hangs in the balance.