Hayden Jones of New Zealand. Photo: FIBA/Rana Elanwar
New Zealand made history at the FIBA U19 Basketball World Cup 2025 by reaching the quarter-finals for the first time.
They've booked themselves a ticket to the final eight after beating China 99-86.
New Zealand nearly wasted a 20-point lead but grabbed the win in a re-match of the FIBA U18 Asia Cup 2024 Semi-Finals - won by New Zealand 86-71.
Hayden Jones scored 16 points to go with 9 rebounds and 4 assists.
"To get a win and head to the top eight is amazing. We had an up-and-down game. China had some runs but we weathered the storm and came out on top," Jones said.
New Zealand are making their fourth appearance in the global junior tournament, taking 13th place in 2009 at home and then finishing 11th in 2017 and 13th in 2019.
Four of the New Zealand U19 players were part of the team that last summer reached the Semi-Finals of the FIBA U17 Basketball World Cup 2024, which matched the greatest result in New Zealand basketball history - fourth place at the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2002.
Hayden Jones father Phill Jones was a member of that 2002 Tall Blacks World Cup campaign in Indianapolis.
Jones was part of last year's U17 World Cup team and said they had meshed together well the players from the slightly older bracket.
"We've got a special group with our U17 guys from last year and the older guys - we gel together really well. We were always going to go all out for each other," Jones said.
They will face either Switzerland or France in their quarter-final.
