Basketball player on top of the world
It took just a minute for Oscar Goodman’s life to change forever when the teen from the tiny town of Opunake was named one of the world’s best teenage basketball players.
Earlier this month Goodman was named in the All Star 5, along with two players from the United States and one each from Italy and Turkey, after representing New Zealand at the FIBA Under 17 World Cup in Turkey.
He is the first New Zealander to be named in an international All Star 5 for 22 years.
Not only is he now fielding calls from US colleges trying to recruit him, his dream of playing in the NBA is that much closer to becoming reality.
Back home in Opunake, Goodman, 17, is still taking it all in - being named in the All Star 5 at the U17 World Cup, his team’s performance and how he has been inundated with calls from US colleges trying to recruit him.
Goodman was sitting in the stand with his team watching the US and Italy in the final when he was approached by a Turkish security guard, he said.
“He told me I was going to be named in it, so I just walked down and was called out. After a really good world tournament being fortunate enough to be selected in that was just topping it off.”
But it is bitter sweet, because New Zealand missed out on the bronze medal losing to hosts Turkey 101-78.
“We played them in the first game of the tournament and I think in the third quarter we had like a 36 point lead over them at one point. And then we ended up by winning by 20. It was the complete opposite for us in the bronze medal game. They were making every shot and we couldn’t make a shot.”
The New Zealand U17 team placed 4th at the World Cup. The best previous finish for New Zealand at a FIBA U17 World Cup was 12th.
Goodman started playing basketball seriously when his family moved from the Coromandel to the small South Taranaki town when he was 12, he said.
“There were a lot more hoops and mini camps that I’d go to.”
And it was when he made the NZ Under 15 team to go to an Oceania tournament he realised “I’m getting pretty good at this”.
Goodman started high school at New Plymouth Boys’, but last year was recruited to the NBA Global Academy in Canberra.
“It’s hard being away from home, but I’ve got used to doing the three-month stints and then coming home for a couple of weeks. It hasn’t been too bad.”
On the way back from Turkey he stopped off in Atlanta, Georgia, to play for the Australian NBA Global Academy team at the NBA Academy Games. His team won.
“I graduate in December and then I’ll be in Canberra for another four or five months. Then I’ll go and play at a college in the US.“
Since he was named in the All Star he had been busy fielding calls from university coaches from the US, he said.
“Throughout that whole week I was getting messages and my coaches were telling me [US] colleges were asking about me. My whole recruiting has blown up since the tournament.”
It’s all “pretty unreal”.
“I’ll just go back to Australia and keep training and then narrow down colleges then commit to a school.”
He hopes to qualify for the New Zealand team to play in the U19 World Champs next year. And eventually, he’d love to play for the Tall Blacks.
But the NBA - that’s the big dream, he said.
Parents Matt and Andie Goodman, who come from a rowing background, have five sports-mad sons, and weren’t able to go to Turkey with their eldest, so watched the games online.
For age grade tournaments players have to pay their own way, Andie Goodman said.
“Over the last three years it’s been a constant fundraising effort. We’ve applied for grants from the Toi Foundation and local Lions Clubs and family and friends have supported us.”
They didn’t expect their son to be named in the All Star 5, she said.
“We wondered, but generally those kind of awards go to the top two teams in the final. But Oscar has already been labelled the top player in Pool C, so he was in the mix.”
Basketball Taranaki general manager Kevin Fenwick said Goodman getting named in the All Star 5 was “very cool”.
“He is mature beyond his years. It was identified very early on, Under 14, Under 15, that he was going to go far.”
Goodman is a good role model for basketball in Taranaki, Fenwick said.