"It Sucks": Hawks Co-Captain Slams NBL23 Performance

The poor form, dismal injury luck and consistent narrow losses has turned NBL23 into a season of focusing on the little wins for the Illawarra Hawks.

Whether it be the development of development players Lachie Dent and Will Hickey, the continued emergence of Sam Froling, or the return to the court of Dan Grida, the Hawks are gaining a reputation of a team that’s so close, yet so far away from turning their season around.

As it stands they’re the only team that is mathematically out of contention for the playoffs, but their intensity and ambition against the JackJumpers last night didn’t show any indication of a diminished desire to turn the season around.

“I just want to win,” Hawks co-captain Sam Froling said post-game. “It sucks losing heaps and that’s the biggest goal for us right now, just to tick one of those off and add one to that win column.

“We don’t want to lose games – it sucks. We’ve gone from being a finals team two years in a row to bottom of the ladder now and it’s not fun.

“We don’t just want to be the team that has a gallant effort,” head coach Jacob Jackomas added.

“We do want to win, and I hope everyone understands that.”

The major positive in the Hawks camp from the narrow loss was the performance of Dan Grida, who put together his best performance since returning to the court from an extended injury layoff.

The 24-year-old forward was close to a return from an ACL rupture early in the season, but a serious hamstring injury delayed his comeback to mid-December.

He finished the game with 16 points and five rebounds from over 20 minutes of action.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Dan Grida beating the buzzer! <br><br>Watch <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL23?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL23</a> live on ESPN via Kayo Sports + Foxtel<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HawkNation?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#HawkNation</a> <a href="https://t.co/dahJjutkZi">pic.twitter.com/dahJjutkZi</a></p>&mdash; Illawarra Hawks Basketball (@illawarrahawks) <a href="https://twitter.com/illawarrahawks/status/1612747621197651969?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 10, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

“He’s got better each game and the confidence is growing,” Froling said of his teammate.

“We knew they (Tasmania) were going to trap Tyler and that short roll was always on. They were pretty aggressive on that step-up on me and Grida back-cut. I probably had six assists to Grida, just little dump-offs.

“As he goes he’s going to continue to get better. We know the type of athlete he is, we know the type of player he can be. Over this year he’s got a really good opportunity to play significant minutes and grow into that.

“It’s cool for me to see him out there because he’s one of my best mates, but I think for our team he’s going to be pretty important.”

Illawarra next head to Cairns to take on the Taipans on Friday night.