(Herald Sun) The Adelaide 36ers have enjoyed the support of an entire nation in NBL22.

Home games are always loud and proud but, whenever the Sixers hit the road, there is an unusually large support for them in the stands.

It’s all down to the hype around their towering big man Kai Sotto.

The 19-year-old is the darling of basketball-mad Philippines and has put the Aussie league on the map in the island nation — social media posts from the Sixers and the NBL tend to go viral when the 218cm giant is mentioned.

With almost 300,000 Philippines-born people living in Australia, Sotto’s pull is so strong that opposing clubs target advertising to the local Filipino communities in their states in a bid to boost crowds.