Josh Selby impressed in his first Bulls outing. Photo / Photosport

By Dale Budge

The Franklin Bulls will welcome in their second import in power forward Zane Waterman this week while fellow big Matt Freeman is a couple of weeks away.

The Bulls went down 99-96 to the Auckland Huskies in a heart-breaking season opener and their first ever game at the Franklin Pool & Leisure Centre in Pukekohe on Sunday night.

But they showed they are going to be a competitive side even without two of their best players.

American Waterman will clear quarantine this week and is expected to take to the court on Saturday when the Bulls face the Manawatu Jets in their second game of the New Zealand Basketball League season.

Freeman will be a little longer however but coach Jamie Reddish is already salivating at the thought of adding two key pieces to an already competitive roster.

“We expect to have Zane back next week, so that should be good and then Matt Freeman he will be back in three or four games,” coach Jamie Reddish told Counties Sports Hub.

“I expect we will have a different line-up – we will have a bit of height and these guys can shoot so we will be able to spread the floor a little bit more and hopefully they won’t be able to back it in on us.”

Reddish was pleased with how his side performed in the season opener. They went back and forth with the Huskies and were pipped at the end with a clutch three-point shot from American star Jeremy Kendle.

“I think we were getting pretty good shot selection on our side, the pace of the game was pretty good and we got into our style of play so pretty happy with that,” Reddish said.

Former NBA point guard Josh Selby showed off his impressive skillset, leading the scoring for the Bulls while also pulling in six rebounds and dishing out a pair of assists.

He was clearly the go-to player for the Bulls and a would-be match-tying three-point shot bounced off the rim in the final seconds.

“He is a very intelligent player,” Reddish explained. “He knows when to go and get the team a bucket and when to get the team involved and fortunately he is a pass-first point guard so he is going to be hard to stop when he finds his feet.

“I think Joe [Nunag] had a really good game. Jaylen [Gerrand] went out there and played a pretty good game so those guys were doing their thing and then the usual guys that I expected – Denhym [Brooke], Nick [Fee] and Dane [Brooks] were good.”