Hoops Heaven’s Basketball Hustle – #NBL25 Episode 24

Cody Ellis on watching Illawarra Hawks triumph, brutal loss again for Melbourne United, frustrating MVP situation for both Davo Hickey/Matthew Dellavedova, NBL Championship Series breakdown and former Saint Louis Billikens captain talks NCAA March Madness.

From the perspective of a former Illawarra Hawks player who went to their last Grand Final appearance, Cody Ellis couldn’t be happier or more proud for the entire Wollongong community to now be celebrating a championship.

We also look at what a mixed week it was for the Froling family with Harry's heartwarming return after a horror two years while it was a heartbreaking achilles injury for Hawks co-captain Sam.

It wasn’t a series without controversies either highlighted by the horribly unfortunate situation of the MVP voting where Matthew Dellavedova won the Larry Sengstock Trophy but surrendered it to Davo Hickey.

It was a horrible situation for both players to be put in but Cody sees an easy solution to make sure it never happens again and that's simply for the votes to be cast at the end of the series and not after each game.

Not only that, but Justin Tatum continued to voice his opinions and the Illawarra Hawks coach was again fined by the NBL while there was an ill-timed leaking of the club owners potentially looking to assume ownership from Larry Kestelman.

All season long the depth has been key to the Hawks success and that was again on show the longer the Championship Series went while their rebounding and hustle became key while Davo Hickey led the charge in all areas to be the hero of the triumph across the series.

There were plenty more heroes for the Illawarra Hawks including Lachlan Olbrich stepping up against the experienced bigs of Melbourne and then his former Warwick Senators teammate Wani Swaka Lo Buluk playing a key role in becoming a four-time NBL champion.

Melbourne United has now lost two straight Championship Series after leading 2-1 and this time it's rebounding that Cody saw as their great weakness, and as demoralising as it must be to lose again, he credits their consistency while acknowledging they might need to now retool.

To wrap up this week's episode, we talk some NCAA March Madness as we enter the Sweet 16 stage with Cody making his predictions on who will make the Elite Eight while also reflecting on his own experiences including a Conference Championship as captain with the Saint Louis Billikens.

All made possible thanks to the support of Hoops Heaven (www.hoopsheaven.com.au) and TABtouch (www.tabtouch.com.au).