TORREN Hunter has taken his game to a new level with the Port Macquarie Dolphins this year.
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And the 18-year-old point guard is set to develop even further after being selected for an eight-day development tour to Kuala Lumpur.
The Port Macquarie product and Melbourne's Rayvia McIntosh are the only non-Queensland players who are set to join their teammates for the SEQ Exposure Basketball Tour.
He has Dolphins teammate and captain Jake Wallis to thank for putting his name forward to the coaching staff.
Wallis did a similar tour a few seasons ago.
"He recommended me and then they looked at my stats and chose whether I was worthy," Hunter said.
"I was pretty keen to do it and just had to make sure I didn't have any TAFE things on but I've got holidays then so it's all good."
The teenager said the sky was the limit if he impressed the right people across the eight days.
"There are two Chinese teams offering university scholarships so that's a possibility, but for me I just want to get better," he said.
"Hopefully I can bring some training back to the state league team and see what I can offer."
It won't just be an overseas tour, with the tour set to be a serious approach to player development with the primary focus on basketball.
"They sent me training programs and a few offences they want to run in games and I had to work on that," he said.
"It's like fitness, weightlifting and getting up heaps of shots and free-throws."
Having a stronger physical presence than some of his teammates means Hunter will potentially play a different position in Malaysia.
"I don't normally play post, but I think I'll be bigger than some of the other players in the team so I'll have to use that to my advantage," he said.
His personal gain will be the Dolphins loss with the side set to be without him for matches towards the end of their state league campaign.
But coach Mark Champion preferred to look at the bigger picture.
"Torren has a lot of skills and is a great kid, but he needs to play against better players because he doesn't get that opportunity here very often in such a young side," he said.
"He's one of the more important players to our team and his biggest struggle is that he's still very young."
Champion said the amount of time his young charge would spend in the touring squad would be "absolutely beneficial."
"He's a kid we need to be developing and nurturing because he's found an apprenticeship here so he's planning on staying around," he said.
"He's done the right thing by us, so we should be looking after players like that."
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