18 year-old Kirk Penney, out of Westlake Boys High School, played his first game for the Tall Blacks in 1999 and went on to make 179 appearances for the Tall Blacks – all but 7 being Tests. He scored over 2,000 international points averaging 17.5 points per game – the highest points per game average of the careers that BBNZ has scoring records for.
Penney played at the 2000 and 2004 Olympics and at four consecutive World Championships between 2002 and 2014. At both the 2002 and 2006 World Champs the one-two guard combo of Penney and Phill Jones led NZ in scoring. At the 2010 World Championships in Turkey he opened with 37 against Lithuania; going on to be the second highest scorer at the tournament with 24.7 points per game.
After High School Kirk spent 4 years at the University of Wisconsin leading the Badgers to the NCAA Final Four in 2000. His 1,454 points for Wisconsin represents the most points scored by a Kiwi in Men’s NCAA Division I basketball. He also became just the second Kiwi after Sean Marks to play in the NBA when appearing for the Miami Heat in 2003.
After stints playing in Spain, Israel, Germany, Lithuania and Turkey he returned to NZ to play for the Breakers.
