NZL – Boucher calls it a day with New Zealand

BRISBANE (FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament) - Dillon Boucher, a valuable member of the New Zealand Tall Blacks in recent seasons, has decided to call it quits with the national team.
 
The 32-year-old forward says that physically, he needs a break and can’t continue to play international basketball although he will continue to suit up for the Brisbane Bullets in the ANBL.
 
"Probably what hit home the most for me this year was the way my body has broken down...which told me that I do need a break at some stage,” he said to http://www.stuff.co.nz.
 
"I've been playing all-year-round now for a good five or six years and I'm no longer as young as I think I am.
 
"The fact that the Tall Blacks training program is a good month or two months of the year is why I chose to say goodbye to international games but keep playing professionally.”
 
Boucher was a member of the Tall Blacks side that took international basketball by storm in 2002, when the FIBA World Championship was staged in Indianapolis.
 
That New Zealand team made a stunning run to the semi-finals, and the Tall Blacks were voted Team of the Year in their country.

New Zealand were runners-up to Australia at the 2006 FIBA Oceania Championship, a finish which qualified the team for the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Athens from July 14-20.
 
The Kiwis are in Group B with Cape Verde and Germany. Should they finish in the top two of that pool, they will take on Greece, Brazil or Lebanon in a quarter-final.
 
FIBA