Sunday’s pre-season game may well be the Orange Army’s first glimpse of their 2013/14 Skytrans Cairns Taipans, but head coach Aaron Fearne says fans should also be excited to see the Butler University Bulldogs.

The Snakes head coach returned from a US recruiting trip on Tuesday and, with just two on-court sessions with his squad this week, he expects the Butler University Bulldogs to provide some quality opposition.

“You’ll see a well-oiled machine visiting here come Sunday,” Fearne said. “The Butler programme has been very successful so fans should definitely come out and appreciate that, and of course see our guys for the first time too...Aside from conditioning and individual work we’ll only have been together on-court for about two days beforehand, but we’ll still try some new stuff, play hard, defend and see what we can do from there."

Fearne said Butler’s success against the giants of US college basketball—including back-to-back final four appearances in 2010 and 2011—was a story all basketball fans could appreciate. Butler became the darlings of US college sports in those years with fairy-tale runs to the NCAA championship game. The leader of the 2010 squad, Gordon Hayward, plays with the NBA’s Utah Jazz while head coach Brad Stevens was recently appointed as the Boston Celtics head coach.

“For a small school like that to punch above its weight against the big-time schools is impressive, especially considering the resources they work with compared to those programmes,” Fearne said. “They’ve been an extremely well-coached squad for years, not only by coach Stevens but current head coach Brandon Miller and the entire coaching staff."

Butler’s squad features Australian Institute of Sport graduate Jackson Aldridge as well as Elijah Brown, son of the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers head coach, Mike Brown. New Taipans Mitchell Young, Matt Burston and newly-signed Shaun Bruce will suit up for the Snakes on Sunday, but fans will have to wait to see gun forward Stephen Weigh in orange as he spends the weekend in Rockhampton for QBL commitments.  Jamar Wilson remains overseas for the birth of his first child, and Fearne confirmed that Kerry Williams—who last week retired from NBL play but continues to lead the Cairns Marlins—would fill in for the Snakes along with two other Marlins yet to be named.

Butler tipped off their four-game Australian tour on Tuesday with a 77-65 win over Norths Bears Invitational Team in Sydney. They play the Sydney Kings tonight before facing the Australian Boomers in a closed session in Canberra on Saturday.

The Skytrans Cairns Taipans play Butler this Sunday, 6.30pm at Cairns Basketball, 289 Aumuller St. Tickets and corporate boxes are still available at Taipans Front Office or via phone 4041 3000.

Skytrans Cairns Taipans vs Butler University Bulldogs

Taipans Roster

#1         G          Kerry Williams
#3         G          Cameron Gliddon
#7         G          Shaun Bruce
#9         F          Mitchell Young
#10       F          Clint Steindl
#11       F          Cameron Tragardh
#40       F          Alex Loughton
#22       C          Matt Burston
#32       C          Matt Andronicos

(Additional Marlins / CQUni Taipans Academy Players TBC)