Marshall coached Otago to the final of the New Zealand under-21 championships in Nelson yesterday.
Otago was beaten 63-55 by North Harbour but had three players - captain Tom Rowe, Hayden Miller and Riki Buckrell - named in the tournament team.
It begs an obvious question: can this promising group of basketballers, many of whom have already been thrust into the national league at a tender age, lead a moribund Nuggets franchise out of its very deep rut? Marshall, who coached the Nuggets in 1998-2000 and 2002-04 and was instrumental in getting the franchise back on its feet after a one-year hiatus, is advising a measured approach to developing Otago's best young players.
"This shows we've got plenty of good talent down here," he said.
"But they're also young guys who need the opportunity to grow a little, and we have to do a better job of putting some people around them to make the Nuggets successful in the future.
It's important these guys aren't expected to save the Nuggets this year.
But if we do the right thing, they will be great for us for a long time."
Marshall said Otago's two talismans over four days in Nelson were Rowe and Miller.
Rowe, the former Junior Tall Black, led from the front and impressed everybody with his workrate, while Miller controlled the offence, sparked the defence and committed hardly a turnover.
Buckrell hit big shots when they were needed and Luke Aston inspired scoring runs at key moments.
Otago took a 19-8 lead in the final and was up 29-27 at halftime.
But North Harbour led 45-44 with a quarter to play and finished a lot stronger than Otago.
"We didn't hit our shots when we really needed to," Marshall said.
"Harbour go very deep and they had guys coming off the bench and really putting pressure on us."
Otago, led by Miller's 21 points, had crushed Wellington 89-65 in the quarterfinal before pipping Nelson 61-59 in the semifinal.
Marshall said Nelson had made a clutch shot to tie the semifinal at 59-59 with less than 2sec left on the clock.
But Nelson then fouled Aston, who kept his nerve to drain two foul shots for the win.
Otago finished eighth in the women's competition after being beaten 55-41 by Gisborne yesterday.
Kylie Crowley led Otago's scoring with 13 points.
