The Summer Series is not your normal basketball competition. We aren’t trying to be another competition that people come to. We don’t want to be that place where people go to play basketball. The aim of The Summer Series is to give people the best basketball experience they’ll ever have in New Zealand College Basketball.

What started off as a lunchtime competition which disinterested Newlands College staff, brought 60+ kids to the gym to play 3×3 basketball every Wednesday for a term. It grew the next term into a lunchtime basketball competition to develop officials, well, we sold it that way. It was really a testing ground for a competition that would be much bigger than any competition ever played before in Wellington for college kids.

At the end of 2017, two students finished their schooling world for good. However, they’ve been more connected to college even now in 2020 than ever before. Two students developed The Summer Series, and are now proud to say that a competition which brings the best out of college students during pre-season basketball is now the biggest competition of it’s type. It started off as pre-season for a lot of teams, but now it’s the first competition of the year for all of them. 150+ players have made their way onto the court during The Summer Series over two years. With the entry of 12 teams in 2020, it’s set to be the biggest year for participation in the history of The Summer Series.

What’s so special about The Summer Series is that it’s never just about basketball. It’s about the stories you can get from players, it’s about the people you meet while playing. The Summer Series also prides itself that it is the first competition in New Zealand (Excluding the National Basketball League) that provides LIVE statistics for ALL games played. As well as statistics, it is the only competition in New Zealand (excluding the National Basketball League as of 2020) to broadcast ALL games played. No matter where you are, you’ll always be able to see The Summer Series in action.

College students are getting something that most will never reach. No competition around New Zealand at a college level has the amount of technology as The Summer Series, whether it’s for players looking at what they can do better through Vision+ Technology, or whether it’s the officials checking to see whether a shot has been made in time through the Instant Replay System specifically built for our competition. A competition like The Summer Series really pushes the boundaries on what can be done in the world of basketball, and in New Zealand, a competition like The Summer Series is the only one who gives an experience of a lifetime to those who deserve it most. The Summer Series is not your normal basketball competition.