Illawarra Hawks Basketball

Come on down and say hi to Sam and Tomma and have the chance to win Hawks prizes! Here til 6pm!

Looking for plans this Thursday? We’ve got you covered! 🙌

Head to Wollongong Central to meet Sam & Tomma on Level 1 outside David Jones. Stop by for photos, autographs, prizes, and a chat with our membership team about everything on offer.

Bring your friends, bring the family - we’ll see you there! 📸🎉

Forty years on, nobody's touched it. On 12 July 1986, in the middle of a back to back road trip against Leroy Loggins and the Brisbane Bullets, Don Bickett put up seven blocks in a single game. That number has never been beaten in Hawks history, not once, not by anyone since. The Hawks won that night 100-94, a day after grinding out an 87-73 comeback over Perth at the Snakepit.

Read the full story of that weekend and the record that's still standing.
www.hawks.com.au/news/40-years-on-the-weekend-that-built-a-record-nobodys-beaten

Pic: Don Bickett in Hawks colours, not from the record breaking game itself.

Remember watching Hickey run our offence? Olbrich own the paint? HJ raining threes from the all over the court?

Three of our NBL25 Champions just hit the court in the California Classic, and now the real test begins. NBA Summer League tips off in Las Vegas this week.

Hickey and Lee already gave us a preview, lining up on opposite benches for the first time, teammates on a championship team now guarding each other in an NBA arena. Hickey started for the Lakers (5pts, 5ast, 2stl) in an 88-84 win. Lee fought hard off the bench for the Spurs (7reb, 4ast).

Same day, Olbrich went a perfect 7-for-7 from the field for 21 points off the bench against Miami. Didn’t miss a shot all night.
This is what Hawks basketball builds. And Hawkheads had a courtside seat for it before the NBA did.

👉 Read the full story https://www.hawks.com.au/news/three-champion-hawks-three-nba-rosters

HEY, YOU! 🫵

Don’t miss a single moment of NBL27.

Get your Hawks Full Season or Flexi membership today! 🦅
https://shorturl.at/I9Lms

Six players with Hawks ties are on court in Cairns tonight.

The IBA All Stars take on New Zealand's Poitūkohu Māori Aotearoa. Women's game tips off 6pm, men's at 8:30. It's part of NAIDOC Week's 50 Years of Deadly, half a century of honouring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and culture.

J***y Narkle and new recruit Amarco Doyle line up for the IBA All Stars men's side, joined by Biwali Bayles and Kobe McDowell-White, who's teaming up with his brother Will. Sisters Hayley and Jess McDowell-White suit up for the women's game. On the other bench, Luca Yates and former Hawk Hyrum Harris run out for Poitūkohu Māori Aotearoa. Different jersey, same respect.

This isn't the only tie we've got to Indigenous basketball history. During NBL26 Indigenous Round, Narkle, William Hickey and Bayles took the court together for the Hawks, three Indigenous Australians in the one team, in the one game. First time that's happened at an NBL club.

And credit where it's due. Indigenous Round on the NBL calendar doesn't start with us. The now defunct Townsville Crocodiles wore the league's first Indigenous jersey back in 2014. What the Hawks did, in 2018, was build on that and turn it into the round the whole league now plays every year, a jersey designed by Harry Pitt that Patty Mills wore into an NBA game.

Our mob. Our round. Our team.

Read the full story: https://www.hawks.com.au/news/six-players-one-team-the-hawks-at-the-indigenous-all-stars

30 years ago today, the Snakepit had a night nobody who was there has forgotten.

It was 6 July 1996. The Hawks were at home against the Sydney Kings. Two thousand-ish people crammed into The Snakepit -Basketball Illawarra.

By the time it was over, the scoreboard read 145-121 and Terry Johnson had done something that still doesn't look real when you watch the old footage back.

41 points. 13 assists. 80% from the field. In 47 minutes of basketball.

If you know, you know. Hawkheads of a certain vintage have called it "The TJ Game" ever since.

Johnson was a local junior. This was his house. And on this particular night, he treated the Snakepit to a performance that belonged in a different era, a different league, a different atmosphere entirely. The Kings threw everything at him. It didn't matter. Fadeaways, threes, drives, dishes off the dribble. Shane Heal put up 28 on the other end, shooting 63% from three. He was exceptional. He just ran into someone who was better that night.

But here's where this game becomes something more than a great box score.

Look at the Hawks' roster that night and you're looking at a snapshot of what this club was about to become.

On the court in red and black: Glen Saville, in just his second season, quiet and composed and already showing what he would grow into. Mat Campbell, a rookie, learning the game at the highest level. Chuck Harmison, closing out his career in the jersey he'd worn for years. Three men. Three numbers that now hang in the rafters at WIN Entertainment Centre.

On the Kings' bench, wearing the wrong colours after following coach Alan Black to Sydney in the off-season: Melvin Thomas - now a fourth retired Hawk number.

Four of the club's five retired jersey holders. One game. One night at the Snakepit.

Also on the Kings' roster, picking up 7 rebounds in 20 minutes: Justin Withers, another Hawk legend (1989-92, 1998).

On the Hawks' sideline, in his first season as head coach: Brendan Joyce. Five years before he'd deliver this club its first NBL Championship.

Nobody in that building knew any of that yet. They just knew Terry Johnson was putting on a show, Andre La Fleur was dropping 30 with 9 assists, Marcus Timmons was hauling down 16 rebounds, and the Hawks were dismantling one of the competition's glamour clubs by 24 points.

Some nights at the Snakepit were bigger than basketball. This was one of them.

And if you're willing to dig deep enough into YouTube, someone has uploaded the game footage. Grainy, unofficial, exactly as it should be. Thirty years old and still worth every minute. Go find it.

If you were there, tell us about it in the comments. And if you can track down any photos from that night, we want to see them. 🦅

Just wanted to flag this….

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