WELLINGTON (2015 FIBA Oceania Championship) - Following New Zealand's defeat in the 2013 FIBA Oceania Championship, then-Tall Blacks coach Nenad Vucinic said he thought beating Australia was tougher than the repechage tournament.

Two years later, as his successor Paul Henare gazed towards next year's FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments (OQTs), he found it hard to split the two.

"Beating Australia is definitely tough, especially when they roll out teams like we saw in this series,” he said.

"I think either way is tough. We're going to be part of a tournament where six teams are fighting tooth and nail for one spot and that's going to be extremely tough no matter what teams are there."

The task for New Zealand is to beat out some quality European teams for the lone 2016 Rio Games spot available at their qualifying event, but that's not the daunting task it once was for the Kiwis.

After beating Finland and Ukraine at last year's FIBA Basketball World Cup, and losing in heartbreaking fashion to Turkey and Lithuania, the Tall Blacks this year ran Croatia and Slovenia to the post on their own turf, giving Henare plenty of belief in his team.

Those two games were a real eye opener for me, the level we played at and competed at. - Henare

"The Croatian game we lost to a shot on the buzzer - woulda, shoulda, coulda - but that was one we could have wrapped up.

"We played that game in Croatia, we jump on a bus, the three-and-a-half hour trip they told us it was turned into five-and-a-half hours on the day of the game, and then we play Slovenia and compete again."

Captain Mika Vukona was also quite positive given the front door to Rio had just been slammed in his face.

The fact we were able to do such a good job defensively against a class act like [Australia], it's got to make people turn their heads a bit. - Vukona

"I've been in a couple of these press conferences where I've felt like we should have done a lot better, but there are a lot of positives that come out of this," he said.

Vukona was also impressed with how his inexperienced teammates performed against world-class sides all international season.

"The talent in the guys is amazing, it's really awesome to be out there playing with these young guys," he said

"They're not young the way they're playing out there - the Isaacs [Fotu], Reubens [Te Rangi], Toms [Abercrombie], Robs [Loe] - it's awesome as a veteran seeing that coming through, and the future of New Zealand basketball coming through is massive."

But Henare knows his young team has to do more than just get close to quality teams if they want to set foot on the beaches of Rio.

"To do it against them just proves the level we're at," he said.

"In saying that, were still about results, we're not about competing and that's part of the culture we're trying to build, it's okay to compete at that level but we want to get results as well."

FIBA