NBL1 West Men's Grand Final Preview

The Warwick Senators and Geraldton Buccaneers have developed quite the rivalry over the past decade culminating in the 2025 NBL1 West Grand Final where the two highest scoring teams with plenty of star power and experience lock horns.

There were four standout teams throughout the 2025 NBL1 West men's season and they were separated when the Senators won a thrilling preliminary final over the Rockingham Flames night, and the Buccaneers outworked their conquerors of a year earlier, the Willetton Tigers.

Now for the first ever time, Warwick and Geraldton will meet in a Grand Final with the Senators hunting a first men's championship aside from the West Coast Classic in 2020, and the Buccaneers a fourth title and second in the past three seasons.

The Grand Final will be held at RAC Arena on Saturday night with tip-off set for 7pm.

SENATORS GRAND FINAL DREAM COME TRUE FOR ELLIS

JOSEPH WANTS BUCCANEERS BASKETBALL IN GRAND FINAL

COOPER HAS SENATORS FOCUSED ON JOB AT HAND

THANKFUL HUNT EMBRACING EVERY OPPORTUNITY

Warwick did win the West Coast Classic championship in 2020 with Mike Ellis coach and Cody Ellis as captain, but Saturday night will be their first official SBL/NBL1 West Grand Final since they lost to a high powered Perth Redbacks back in 1990.

Geraldton, meanwhile, have been contenders through most of their history including playing in the first ever SBL Grand Final in 1989 only to lose to the Redbacks as well.

The Buccs played in three losing Grand Finals before breaking through for a maiden championship in 2000 and there was another two losing deciders along with a host of years of banging on the door before they broke through in 2019.

Geraldton then lost a Grand Final in 2022 before making up for it in 2023 and having missed the chance to go back-to-back in 2024 despite finishing four games clear in top spot, are now looking for a second championship in three years, third in seven and a fourth overall.

While this is the first Grand Final the two teams will contest, they are no strangers to one another in finals and the most recent meeting was only two weeks ago in the qualifying final at Geraldton's Active West Stadium.

Despite the Buccs winning the two meetings during the regular season by a combined 33 points, it was the Senators who prevailed away from home with a 63 to 36 scoreline in the second half for the 31-point victory.

Going back further and in both 2017 and 2019 the two teams met in quarter-final series' that went all the way to three games with the Buccaneers winning both deciding Game 3's on their home court.

Since that qualifying final win two weeks ago, the Senators hosted the Rockingham Flames in the preliminary final last Saturday night and in a classic encounter, came away with the two-point victory with a shot just before the buzzer from first-year forward Cooper Creek.

Geraldton had to do it the hard way after that qualifying final loss and beat the Goldfields Giants at home by 23 points last Friday night and then backed up with a hard working effort to overcome the Tigers at Willetton Basketball Stadium on Sunday in the preliminary final.

Saturday night will be the fourth meeting between the two teams this season and while the combined margins have been 64 points across those previous three games, there's every reason to think the Grand Final will be a different story.

The two teams are the highest scoring teams in the league with Warwick averaging 109.5 points a game with an average of 43 three-point attempts a game while shooting at a mighty impressive 40.7 per cent as a team.

Not only do the Senators possess the league's leading scorer Elijah Pepper with his 36.1 points a game not to mention his 7.5 assists and 6.7 rebounds, it's a deep and supremely talented Warwick team.

Mitch Clarke is a two-time Perry Lakes championship winner and in his first season with Warwick is in career-best form with 18.6 points and 6.6 assists with Todd Withers adding 17.9 points along with being Best Defensive Player.

Then there's Cooper Creek, Tyler Shand, Kye Chamberlain, George Pearl, Brody England and former captain and 243-game veteran Cody Ellis who also had a four-year college career and played 127 NBL matches at the Sydney Kings and Illawarra Hawks.

It will be a first NBL1 West Grand Final for Senators coach Andrew Cooper as well in his second season at the helm but he's just remaining focused on the job at hand.

"It's exciting but I'm more excited for the club and for the players. There's definitely a level of excitement for me as well, but making a Grand Final isn’t the pinnacle, winning one is," Cooper said.

"But seeing the joy on the faces of the fans and our support staff, and all our volunteers and the players on Saturday night, that is satisfying and exciting. We also know that there's also one more to go."

The Buccaneers are now back in a Grand Final having played in them in 2019, 2022 and 2023 while this 2025 season has been about making up for the missed opportunity in 2024 when they ended the regular season four games clear on top.

This season they finished with the same record as the Senators at 18-4 but claimed second position and now enter the Grand Final with a team full of firepower even if doing it a slightly different way than the Senators.

Geraldton averaged 14 fewer three-point attempts than Warwick through the regular season, but were still able to put up 104.3 points a game which including that rising to 113.4 in the last 11 matches of the regular season that they won all of.

Johny Narkle produced 23.4 points, 7.8 rebounds and 5.2 assists a game this season for Geraldton to make the All-First Team and then earn a development player contract with the Illawarra Hawks.

Then there's Akeem Springs who provided 16.6 points, 4.1 rebounds and 2.7 assists, Joshua Keyes 15.6 points and 8.0 rebounds, Verle Williams 12.2 points and 5.0 assists, and Nik DeSantis 11.1 points, 4.3 assists and 3.7 rebounds.

Then the Buccs still possess two-time championship winning local heroes Mat Wundenberg, Aaron Ralph and Liam Hunt. Wundenberg and Ralph have also captained one championship apiece and have a combined 1023 games of experience they bring with them into a fourth Grand Final each.

Hunt is a Grand Final MVP of 2019, went close again in 2023 and has had another standout season with 14.9 points, 8.7 rebounds and 3.7 assists.

Buccaneers coach Dayle Joseph is a three-time Coach of the Year and two-time championship winner, and is excited for the opportunity for his team to get to play for a title at RAC Arena.

"I might have even said the same thing a couple of years ago just playing in front of the crowd at Bendat and thinking that would be as big as we'd get at this level," Joseph said.

"Now to play at RAC Arena which is an amazing venue and everyone I've talked to says what a nice place to play, and to enjoy the experience and have fun in the moment.

"It is a big moment that's for sure and for a country team to travel to Perth and to be put in that environment is going to be great."

When you put together the league's highest scoring teams, two genuine superstars who will be part of NBL26 in Elijah Pepper and Johny Narkle, add in grizzled veterans like Mat Wundenberg, Cody Ellis and Aaron Ralph, and warriors Todd Withers and Liam Hunt, and it has the makings of a Grand Final classic.