{"id":908083,"date":"2026-09-28T03:04:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T03:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/908083\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T03:04:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T03:04:17","slug":"team-by-team-hooyah-harden-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/908083\/","title":{"rendered":"Team-By-Team: Hooyah & Harden Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Damon Lowery.\u200d<\/p>\n

Round 2 Edition<\/p>\n

Author\u2019s note: These opinions are mine and mine alone. It\u2019s NEVER personal and always about the basketball. <\/p>\n

A Hooyah is given for exemplary play and standout performances so if you get one \u2013 bask in the glory. <\/p>\n

A Harden Up signifies an underwhelming effort or poor play so if you get one of these – cop it and just move on.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Defeated by Perth, defeated Cairns<\/p>\n

DOUBLE HOOYAH ALERT<\/p>\n

HOOYAH \u2013 Trevor Gleeson: You admitted to being emotional coming back for the first time as the \u2018enemy\u2019 after achieving so much success in Perth. Seeing the mutual love and respect at RAC was beautiful. You acknowledged every corner of the Arena as the Red Army gave you your flowers. I even saw you hugging former championship players and I\u2019m just a sucker for that kind of stuff.<\/p>\n

HOOYAH \u2013 Bryce Cotton: You\u2019re already in the \u201cYou Can\u2019t Guard Me 1-on-1 Club\u201d, and now, you\u2019re in the 300 Club. Congrats! It wasn\u2019t quite enough to get out with the win, but your 37 points (32 in the last 3 quarters), 9 assists and 4 steals was scintillating. You backed it up in game 301 with another 25 points against Cairns.<\/p>\n

HARDEN UP \u2013 Nick Rakocevic: Back-to-back 20-point games, but \u2026 I can\u2019t let that air-ball from the free throw line slide. It wasn\u2019t just short; it was wide right. Thanks for the giggle!<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Defeated Illawarra<\/p>\n

HOOYAH \u2013 Max Mackinnon: I love that you don\u2019t give a damn you\u2019re a \u201crookie\u201d. You\u2019re playing with the poise and swagger of a seasoned veteran. 31 points and 12 boards is awesome for anyone, let alone a 22-year-old first-year player. Your all-around game is \u201cmust see\u201d and absolute cinema. \u201cCineMax\u201d Mackinnon, anyone? I\u2019ll see myself out.<\/p>\n

HARDEN UP \u2013 Arnas Velicka: After winning the Foot Locker Player of the Game, you thought you could use it to buy drinks for the team. What kind of Foot Lockers do you have in Lithuania? I might need to book a trip to come visit!<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Defeated Tasmania, defeated by Adelaide<\/p>\n

HOOYAH \u2013 Jaylon Brown: Good to see you knocking down shots against Tassie. I knew it was only a matter of time. That 20 piece looked kinda easy too. Throw in 5 rebounds, 4 assists and the win.<\/p>\n

HARDEN UP \u2013 Reyne Smith: It\u2019s early days, so not gonna make too big a deal that you\u2019re a shooting guard who isn\u2019t shooting well. 4 points in 21 minutes and NO threes? I\u2019m waiting for you to heat up cause I got all these \u201cRain\u201d puns I wanna use!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Defeated by Brisbane and Sydney<\/p>\n

HOOYAH \u2013 Johny Narkle: At the back end of last season you showed what you\u2019re capable of and clearly earned Justin Tatum\u2019s respect. You were able to score in a variety of ways, and had a career-high 15 off the bench against Brisbane.<\/p>\n

HARDEN UP \u2013 Team Defence: It\u2019s only been three games, but you\u2019re the worst defensive team in the League. Teams are doing whatever they want, whenever they want. You\u2019re giving up 106 a game. You guys cool with that? I wouldn\u2019t have thought so.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Defeated South East Melbourne<\/p>\n

HOOYAH \u2013 Josh Oduro: You\u2019re looking like the perfect fit for this team. I love the way you\u2019re going about it. 21 points (77% FG) and 8 boards in just 26 minutes contributed heavily to the beatdown you guys put on your lil\u2019 brother, South East Melbourne.<\/p>\n

HARDEN UP – Offensive Rebounds: Even though you smacked the Phoenix and embarrassed them in their first home game, you gave up 20 offensive rebounds. They scored 61, but it could’ve easily been less than 50 if you boxed out properly. Clean that up.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Defeated by Perth<\/p>\n

\u200dHOOYAH \u2013 Parker Jackson-Cartwright: El Presidente of the \u201cLil\u2019 Big Man\u2019s Society\u201d. You\u2019ve started the season in MVP form. You tried to strap the team to your back, but didn\u2019t have enough help. Two-thirds of the Breakers\u2019 Big 3 went missing. Your 30 points, 8 assists and 3 steals were impressive, but all in vain.<\/p>\n

HARDEN UP \u2013 Dejan Vasiljevic: The \u201cFlamethrower\u201d – you came into the game averaging 20 and shooting a ridiculous 63% from deep. That\u2019s why I was shocked you missed all 8 of your shots, with your only points coming from two makes at the free throw line. I\u2019m not gonna overreact; it\u2019s like that sometimes.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Defeated Adelaide and New Zealand<\/p>\n

TRIPLE HOOYAH ALERT (these are rare)<\/p>\n

HOOYAH \u2013 Anthony Dell’Orso: After that first game, you\u2019ve been ballin\u2019! You racked up your first career double-double against the Breakers (15 points and 11 rebounds) and had 5 dimes.<\/p>\n

HOOYAH \u2013 Dylan Windler: You’re back like you never left. With JLA out with a calf, you kept the scoreboard ticking. 26 points, 8 boards and 2 blocks were instrumental in the win over New Zealand.<\/p>\n

HOOYAH \u2013 Elijah Pepper: \u201cCayenne\u201d Pepper – With all the noise swirling about what you guys don\u2019t have, you led from the front and showed what you do have – big time minerals. With 7 seconds left and down 2, and with Bryce Cotton draped all over you, you hit the toughest shot of your life and sent the Red Army into absolute hysterics.<\/p>\n

HARDEN UP \u2013 Jo Lual-Acuil Jr.’s calf: After 21 points and 10 boards in the first game of the round, you injured your calf early in the second game against New Zealand and didn\u2019t return. You had a small glacier of ice wrapped around your calf. Hopefully, it\u2019s not too severe. Rest up, my man.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Defeated Adelaide and New Zealand<\/p>\n

DOUBLE HOOYAH ALERT<\/p>\n

HOOYAH \u2013 Josh King: Ok, so we all know \u201cPlan A\u201d is shoot a hell of a lot of threes. But if those said threes are not going in, WHAT IS PLAN B? You finished 4\/41 from Downtown (9.75%) \u2013 that\u2019s 37 misses and some kind of record! But it gave me an idea for a new competition. You pick 10 fans from the crowd and give them 41 shots from beyond the arc. If they make more than 4, they get free tickets for life. Or here\u2019s a better idea, get a Plan B.<\/p>\n

HOOYAH \u2013 Marketing Team: For getting a sell out to your first home game. Sorry, the team forgot to show up.<\/p>\n

HARDEN UP \u2013 Yannis Morin: My man, you did not fly all the way from France to Melbourne to register a big fat glazed donut with jam in the middle. Zero points in a game can never ever happen again. Be way better.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

HOOYAH \u2013 Will Johnson: Welcome to the League, my man. You came off the bench and immediately gave the Hawks problems with your pace and scoring. 14 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists in 17 minutes, that\u2019s \u201cWassup\u201d!<\/p>\n

HARDEN UP \u2013 Pass.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

HOOYAH \u2013 Taran Armstrong: You\u2019re looking lively out there. Your last game in the NBL was a triple-double and I thought you were gonna get another. With damn-near everybody on the team injured, you produced 20 points, 6 rebounds and 7 assists. Way to lead.<\/p>\n

HARDEN UP \u2013 Injuries: You need to chill because you torpedoed the team last season, and three players are still recovering. Now you’ve claimed Josh Bannan and Majok Deng, leaving nine healthy bodies. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

HOOYAH \u2013 Opening Week: You promoted the start of the season as \u201cOpening Week\u201d but it went for 9 days. Huh?<\/p>\n

HARDEN UP \u2013 Me (this is a first): First of all, you all owe me a huge debt of gratitude. If it wasn\u2019t for my brutal dominance and the way I biblically destroyed the SuperCoach competition last season with \u201cBeat the Coach\u201d, they would\u2019ve never brought back the OG game \u201cClassic\u201d. That being said, this Harden Up is for my SuperCoach coaching. I gotta figure it out quick cause my team ain\u2019t beating anybody. I had a mare this last round.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Damon Lowery.\u200d Round 2 Edition Author\u2019s note: These opinions are mine and mine alone. It\u2019s NEVER personal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":908084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-908083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=908083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/908084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=908083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=908083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=908083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}