One of the biggest basketball tournaments in New Zealand is being held in Tauranga for the first time this weekend.

The Basketball Pacific Easter tournament is a four day tournament at ASB Arena and sees 108 teams from the North Island and Australia competing against each other.

Tauranga City's Under 17 boys team playing Country Cup from Australia. Photos by Tracy Hardy.

Tauranga City Basketball general manager Mark Roger says everything is going great.

'We have 12 Tauranga teams playing right through from the under 12s to the under 21 women's team.

'The Tauranga teams have some mixed results at the moment but that's to be expected as some are development teams.” Roger says the experience is great for them.

'It's great for them to be able to play against teams from other parts of the country. We also have a lot of coach and referee education going on, which is all part of the weekend.

'This tournament is one of the highlights for the year. All the representative teams have been training for about 10 weeks, so it's a good chance for them to see where they are at for the year and it's the biggest one in the country.”

He says the arena has been great and one of the reasons why we are able to have it here.

'We had to bid to get it here. It's great for the community and great for the city with the economic benefit and everything else it brings.”