The Australian Christian College Kingsmen, playing in junior boys division five, are giving their best in the spirit of competition and Christianity.

"That's what we try to put into them. We play to win, but it's how we play the game and our representation of Jesus Christ. We're representing the Lord, so we need to show that not with word but with deeds wherever we go," coach Mark Hancock said.

Ranging in age from 13 to 16, the boys hail from an assortment of suburbs but are connected by their beliefs and have been playing together for almost four years.

"We've got boys from Stockton, Maitland, Belmont we're fairly scattered around the Newcastle area. They're all home-schoolers and they do their schooling via correspondence," Hancock said.

"We've been playing in the local competition at Gateshead for three or four years and we went to a tournament on the Central Coast last year and had such fun that we decided to enter this tournament as well."

The Kingsmen were soundly beaten by Victoria's Boort Secondary College (60-14) and Sydney's Westfields Sports High (123-35) in their first two games.

They were more competitive in their third match yesterday, pushing Victoria's Wedderburn College for most of the contest before going down 86-69.

Their next games are against St Dominic's Penrith at Maitland at 8am today and Queensland's Siena Catholic College at Broadmeadow at 9.30am tomorrow.

In the lopsided loss to Westfields, Hancock said the boys played harder at the end than they did at the start "which is very encouraging".

"We believe we're actually going to win a game," he said.

"It starts with basketball but the other things they've learnt through it, things like self-discipline, pride in themselves, the camaraderie there's numerous other advantages in this game that the children are learning."

The team is Noah Smythe, who is the captain, Samuel Campbell, Zachariah Harrison, Jacob Powell, Peter McLean, Daniel Taylor, Adam Warner, Joses Tirtabudi and Elijah Smyth.