{"id":364484,"date":"2026-04-05T06:01:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T06:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/364484\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T06:01:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T06:01:12","slug":"taranaki-born-forward-to-feature-in-ncaa-mens-championship-decider","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/364484\/","title":{"rendered":"Taranaki-born forward to feature in NCAA men’s championship decider"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"INDIANAPOLIS,<\/p>\n

\nOscar Goodman reacts with teammates after defeating the Arizona Wildcats in the 2026 NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
\nPhoto: PATRICK SMITH\n<\/p>\n

Kiwi forward Oscar Goodman’s Michigan Wolverines has beaten Arizona 91-73 to advance to the final of the NCAA men’s basketball championship.<\/p>\n

Goodman, 19, is in line to become just the second New Zealander to win a men’s title when Michigan faces UConn for the national crown.<\/p>\n

Only Jack Salt with Virginia in 2019 has previously achieved the feat.<\/p>\n

The 2.01m Goodman, who was born in \u014cpunake, grabbed one rebound but missed two free throws during his limited time on court at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.<\/p>\n

Michigan overpowered Arizona as the Wolverines opened up an early lead and were never really challenged.<\/p>\n

The final will be played on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

In the women’s NCAA final, UCLA’s Charlisse Ledger-Walker is on the verge of making history for New Zealand.<\/p>\n

No Kiwi has ever won a women’s title, though Jillian Harmon and Claire Bodensteiner were runners-up with Stanford in 2008, before playing for Tall Ferns at the Beijing Olympics a couple of months later.<\/p>\n

– RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar Goodman reacts with teammates after defeating the Arizona Wildcats in the 2026 NCAA men’s basketball tournament. Photo:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":["post-364484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}