Hawks reflect on what could have been

Should have, would have, could have is the line coming from the Illawarra Hawks following their heartbreaking Game 3 defeat to Melbourne United, which has put an end to the club’s NBL24 rise and Finals run.

The Hawks started sluggishly in the decider on Wednesday night and never fully recovered. Although they managed to get within touching distance of United a number of times, the top seed eventually ran out as six-point winners.

Illawarra’s run has been heralded as one of the competition’s fairy tales over the campaign, but Sam Froling says it’s a title that has never sat well with the group.

“We weren’t big fans of the fairy tale Cinderella story,” he said. “This team was put together at the start of the year to win, we started poorly, we fixed it, and we got back to where we believe we should have been.

“It was a hell of a series against the best team all year and we believe we could have beaten them and we should have beaten them. I’m sure there will be a lot of stuff we’ll go back and watch and we could have fixed. It’s a bit bittersweet, we believed and we know we could have done it, it just sucks we didn’t.

“It sucks. There’s no other way to put it ... the exciting thing is so many guys are coming back from this team, JT (Justin Tatum) is here for another three years. We wanted to get it done this year because we love this team – everyone – it would have been awesome to win with this team, but going forward it’s exciting and we start to look to the future now.”

That future will immediately begin with an assessment of the roster and a decision on who off-contract should be retained, and who could move to pastures new.

Star import Gary Clark’s future with the club remains murky at the time of writing, however the star import has consistently stated his love for both the Illawarra club and community.

Head coach Justin Tatum says his first priority is to run it back with the exact same group.

“I want everybody back on this team, but at the end of the day we know this is a professional league and we have to do our best to get them back, but ‘GC’ and Sam know I want the same 12 or 13 guys that were in there.

“If that doesn’t work out, we’ll find a way to make it work, but that is our first priority.

“I inherited the team, but this is my team. I hand selected or knew who was going to be a part of this team as I was coming in as an assistant, so I was building that relationship there.

“This is my group, I’m proud of them and the way we were able to put ourselves in an opportunity like this, because our season could have been over February 18 and we could have been at home or doing whatever, but our guys kept fighting and kept playing.

“That shows us where our future is.”