BIO: Tonny Jensen was born in Wagga (NSW) and began playing basketball as a junior with the Queanbeyan basketball program.

NBL EXPERIENCE

Tonny Jensen made his NBL debut with the Sydney Kings at 20 years of age. He scored three points in his first game.

In 1993, the Townsville Suns entered the NBL and recruited Jensen to be a part of the team’s inaugural season. Under head coach Mark Bragg Townsville went winless during their first month of NBL competition. It wasn’t until their fifth game before they recorded their first-ever NBL win, a victory over the Newcastle Falcons. Over the course of the season, Jensen would average 9.8 points, 3.8 rebounds, and 3.1 assists but further success didn’t come easy for the new team who finished dead last with a record of 4–22.

NEWCASTLE FALCONS
1994
In 1994, Jensen averaged 13.4 points, 4.1 rebounds, and 3.2 assists, playing a key role in the Falcons rotation, and helping the team finish in eighth place (13-13).

1995
The 1995 season saw Jensen average 20.9 points, 4.4 rebounds, and 4.8 assists and play a key role in helping the Falcons to a eighth place finish in the regular season with a 17-9 record.

NORTH MELBOURNE GIANTS
1996
The Giants would return almost their entire roster in 1996 as the team looked to go one step further after finishing runners-up in 1995. The only roster changes being the addition of Tonny Jensen, a member of the Australian Boomers, who would replace the retiring Mark Leader and a returning Paul Maley would replace import Chris Jent after he delivered one of the greatest one and done seasons in NBL history.

Pat Reidy would lead the team in scoring, averaging 20.8 points as well as 6.9 rebounds, and 3.6 assists, while McDonald would deliver another stellar season, putting up 17.5 points, 5.3 rebounds, and a league leading 10 assists per game. Jensen would average 14.6 points, 2.4 rebounds, and 1.7 assists alongside the two stars and in a extremely close season, where only two games seperated third place and eight place. The Giants finished with a 15-11 record and in seventh place finish on the NBL ladder.

North Melbourne would face crosstown rivals South East Melbourne who would make quick work of the Giants behind a season high 19 points from Andrew Parkinson in game one, a 82-96 loss and a 25 point effort from Tony Ronaldson in game two, which resulted in a 77-87 defeat and the end to the Giants season.

At seasons end McDonald would again be named to the All-NBL First team.

NEWCASTLE FALCONS
1997
During the 1997 season, Jensen averaged 22.1 points, 3.6 rebounds, and 4.4 assists and was a part of the Falcons squad which finished in tenth place (12-18).

1998
After losing up and coming talent Scott McGregor (to Sydney) and Ben Pepper (to North Melbourne), coach Shawn Dennis made several changes to the roster, including moving on from aging imports Dave Simmons and Butch Hays. Dennis chose to replace Hays with Terry Johnson (via Illawarra), who, after delivering a number of productive seasons as a shooting guard, believed he could also make a import at the point guard spot. After the Hawks told him that he wasn’t a ‘point guards bootlace’ he headed to Newcastle, who were willing to give him a season running the point.

Newcastle added Tonny Jensen (via Townsville) and Marc Brandon (via Illawarra) to replace their local talent and then rounded out the roster by adding former Sydney Kings fan favourite Isaac Burton and highly credentialled NBA big man Todd Mundt as imports.

Newcastle lost their opening game to South East Melbourne (73–93) and went on to suffer defeats to Illawarra (92-96), Sydney (90–105) and Brisbane (90-92) before they chalked up their first win against Townsville (110–96).

While the loses continued to rack up, the unearthed a future star with Newcastle local Ben Melmeth lifting his production from 12.3 points and 8.0 rebounds to 21.6 points and 12.4 rebounds. As a result, Melmeth was selected to the All-NBL First Team and named Most Improved Player at the end of the season.

Johnson (10.9 points, 5.1 rebounds, and 4.1 assists) fared well in his new role, his play gaining him a spot at this years Boomers selection camp and Burton (19.2 points, 5.7 rebounds, 3.6 assists, 2.2 steals), Todd Mundt (13.6 points, 6.0 rebounds, and 1.3 assists) and returning star Tonny Jensen (18.1 points, 3.2 rebounds, 4.2 assists, and 1.3 steals) delivered quality numbers as well. The lack of production came from the team’s bench, who combined to deliver 12 points per game in total, with new recruit Brandon (3.1 points, 2.0 rebounds, and 0.7 assists) the highest scoring player off the bench. As a result, the Falcons struggled to stay in front during any game during times they rested their starting lineup and finished the season in tenth place (9-21).

1998/99
Entering the 1998/99 season, the Falcons were in dire financial trouble, but on the brink of the season starting, they secured funds from a group of investors from Albury. As a result, the Falcons were able to retain local talent Ben Melmeth, Terry Johnson and import Todd Mundt but were forced to build the rest of the team on a shoestring budget. Somewhat luckily, Newcastle benefitted from the merger of South East Melbourne and North Melbourne, which saw Pat Reidy and import Butch Hays both former Giants players, without a team. With few NBL team’s having any space on their rosters at this stage, the Falcons were able to sign both at budget prices. Dean Brogan (via Adelaide), Rod Johnson (via Canberra) and legendary shot blocker Willie Simmons was lured out of retirement to play another season.

While obvious favourites to finish on the bottom of the ladder, the Falcons surprised everyone by winning five of their first six games.

Shortly after, reports of players not being paid their salaries surfaced, and the focus, motivation and production among the players began to wane. Mundt exited the team as a result of not getting paid on time and was replaced with Simmons (14.4 points, 7.1 rebounds, 1.9 assists, and 1.2 steals) who after a season playing with Sydney was sitting at home after being unable to find another new deal.

The remainder of the season then saw Newcastle record three wins from their next nineteen games before finally beating Perth (113–111) in their final game of the year.

Pat Reidy (17.8 points, 5.2 rebounds, 3.9 assists, and 1.1 steals) led the team in scoring, Ben Melmeth (17.5 points, 11.2 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 1.1 steals) led the team in rebounds while Terry Johnson (14.9 points, 4.3 rebounds, 3.7 assists, and 2.1 steals) delivered his best season at the point guard position and his brother Rod Johnson (11.4 points, 2.5 rebounds, and 3.2 assists) rounded out the team’s leading scorers. As a result of injuries Jensen saw his production take a major drop, falling from 18 points per game to 6.7 points.

After narrowly surviving the season before, this would prove to be the death knell for Newcastle, with the league stepping in to address their financial situation and its result being the removal of their NBL licence and the Falcons being forced out of the league.

CANBERRA CANNONS
2000/01
In 2000/01, Jensen returned for one final season. Although he wasn’t physically able to deliver the numbers he had previously, he added 8.8 points, 1.4 rebounds, and 1.0 assist per game as the Cannons finished with a dismal record of 3 wins and 25 losses.

Tonny Jensen played nine seasons across five NBL teams. This included the Sydney Kings, Townsville Suns, North Melbourne Giants, Newcastle Falcons and Canberra Cannons. He averaged 14.8 points, 3 rebounds, and 3 assists in 209 NBL games.

Dan Boyce (832 Posts)

Dan Boyce is a die-hard Sydney Kings fan who grew up in Melbourne during the roaring 90's of Australian Basketball and spent far too much time collecting Futera NBL Basketball cards.