Ultimate fairytale championship for Geraldton's Liam Hunt

Three years ago and Liam Hunt could only dream of playing basketball again. Now he's on top of the world having helped inspire the Geraldton Buccaneers to the NBL1 West championship, and to get to return to his job as a teacher and the city of Geraldton with a ring means everything.

Hunt grew up dreaming of playing with the Buccaneers to follow in the footsteps of his father Dan who played 382 games with the club including being part of the 2000 championship even when he was living in California.

Hunt would go on to attend Hope International University but once he finished college, he returned to Geraldton and began his then SBL career at the Buccaneers and went on to be the Grand Final MVP in the 2019 championship triumph.

Things could scarcely get better. He was on the verge of a first stint as a professional in Europe in 2020 but when playing in a West Coast Classic game that year thanks to COVID in Rockingham, he suffered a horrific leg injury.

Basketball was a distant dream at that point because even walking and running normally again was going to be a challenge with the significance of the damage, however, with the same will and desire he shows on the court, he put into his rehabilitation.

Hunt made it back on the court for the start of the 2022 NBL1 West season and despite playing through significant pain still in his leg, he was a key part of the Buccaneers team that with five minutes to go in the season, were on track to win another championship.

It would have been the fairytale return, until Devondrick Walker, Marshall Nelson and the Rockingham Flames spoiled the party but sometimes the best things are the ones you're made to wait for.

Twelve months later and Hunt got to have that fairytale story when he delivered a monstrous finish to Saturday night's NBL1 West Grand Final to help inspire the Buccaneers to the win against the Joondalup Wolves and to secure a championship that words can't describe what it means.

Feeling of playing such a big role in championship

The Buccs looked almost dead and buried when the Wolves were leading the Grand Final by 12 points after a CJ Turnage three-pointer late in the third quarter.

However, captain Aaron Ralph cut the margin to eight on three quarter-time and then in the fourth quarter, Hunt scored 11 points of his own including making two three-pointers and also made the pass to set up Ralph's go-ahead triple with 5:45 to play.

He also blocked an attempt by Bryan Michaels, pulled down a couple of rebounds and quite simply, he wasn’t going to let the Buccaneers lose as he finished with 19 points, nine boards, three assists and three blocks to join Mat Wundenberg and Ralph as dual championship winners.

"It's a pretty cool feeling to be honest. I don't really know how to put it and I never really think of myself as a scorer, I more think of myself as a person who will just try to make the right play at the right time," Hunt said. 

"Lucky for me, there was a couple of plays there when I knew they were reading off me and I knew what they were going to kind of run, and I started taking advantages of the mismatches. 

"Whereas I don’t think we ran a proper set for that entire run and it was more just creating things out of what they were giving us, and to be in the position where I could actually hit a few shots to put us up and get us going, that was really great. 

"I get a lot of people at school asking how I feel doing that and always say the same thing that I just try to make the right play at the right time. The ball just started going in and that was the beauty of it," he added.

"I tried to pride myself on the fourth quarters this year and being fit enough to do that has been a big focus. So it's more that than I'm really happy with as all the work I've put in over the off-season to stay fit and then even when I went to the States I was able to stay fit enough to come back and pick up where I left. 

"What I'm most proud of is that I stayed fit enough to play that whole fourth quarter and it's a great feeling to be part of it, but I'm lucky I have such amazing teammates who have such faith in me."

Championship win makes comeback worthwhile

The championship triumph of 2019 meant an enormous amount to Hunt because of his family's connection to the Buccs and to the community of Geraldton, but to now have won another title after what he's been through since is hard to comprehend.

The leg injury robbed him of not only 18 months on the basketball court, but has meant the pain in his leg will for the rest of the life be a reminder of what he went through, and it cost him a chance to live out his dreams playing professionally.

To come back to play was an amazing achievement, but to have become among the best Grand Final performers in league history is what he's done, he's a two-time championship winner and that professional dream could again be a possibility too.

That all makes the 28-year-old more than humbled to be where he is now.

"It was always a goal to win one obviously and if you asked me before my injury if my career would have been a waste without a championship, I would have said yes," Hunt said.

"Now that after I've been injured and have come back to the game and realised something I love so much got taken away in an instant, and now I've got it back, the goal was always just to compete for a championship. 

"But my whole perspective now is that I've just got a chance to keep playing the game I love and that's been my perspective since coming back. Then this year after losing last year, I had that fire to win one more than ever, though, and last year it really was just a joy to be playing. 

"This year it was still a joy to play, but I also worked extremely hard to keep my body in shape and now at this point all those early morning gym sessions that I hate are worthwhile," he added.

"I wanted to put myself in the right position to try to win but win, lose or draw, we've been given a gift to play such a great game. I'm 28 years of age now and most of the people I grew up playing with aren’t playing anymore, so that just makes me even mor grateful to be in this position I am. 

"That's the most special thing and especially to do it for Geraldton, I love the community and the Buccs to death."

Walking back into school a hero

After what happened with the injury in 2020, Hunt has thrown himself into his career as a teacher at Champion Bay Senior High School and couldn't love the chance more than to be such an important part of the Geraldton community during the week.

To walk back into school on Tuesday after what he did on Saturday night to become a two-time championship winning hero, Hunt can't lie and pretend it wasn’t quite the experience to have the students and his colleagues so excited with what he had done.

"There is a bit of that with everyone running up to me with a lot of the students wanting to talk about, and even a lot of the staff," Hunt said. 

"Luckily I had talked a lot of the staff before but the kids came rushing up to me straightaway to give me high fives and fist bumps, and they were just so excited about it. A lot of them are very cheeky too because they're public school kids and they tell me we should have lost, and I just agree. 

"It's awesome, though, and it's such a cool feeling to walk into those fist bumps and I work in a school where about 40 per cent of our students are Indigenous. To be part of that community and to have them follow us so greatly this year and for Johny Narkle to be their hero, it has just been so special. 

"To have those kids who have some really challenging lives at home, for them to find a way to watch the game and support as much as they do, it just warms your heart and the whole town is just so brilliant to be part of. 

"I wore the ring to school and everyone just wanted to have a turn holding it and wearing, and I just let them share that and I know I'll get it back after class – at least I hope I do. 

"It's just awesome to have so many kids at a public school in Geraldton with so many struggles to deal with, for them to commit and love the Buccs and have enough respect for myself to support us the way they do, it just makes you feel like a bloody rock star."

Reflecting on championship win

The emotion was written all over Hunt's face as soon as the final buzzer sounded at Bendat Basketball Centre on Saturday night about what the championship triumph meant to him.

However, now that he's had a few days to reflect on it and he can put the words together about just how much it meant to not only share it with his long-time teammates Ralph and Wundenberg, coach Dayle Joseph, but to the newer faces and the whole community of Geraldton.

"It was almost a complete opposite of last year. We just did not have control of this game until probably six or seven minutes to go when we cut it back to four and then one, and Ralph hit that three to put us up two," Hunt said.

"That's when we felt like we could have some sort of control of the game, but they did such a good job of keeping us off the boards and keeping our strengths of running away. We were just lucky to hit a few shots down the stretch, but it was the complete opposite of last year. 

"Against Rockingham we felt like we had most of the control of that game for three and-a-half quarters and then we let it slip so once we started to grind back in this time, it started to feel a bit more real. 

"But when the final buzzer went I couldn’t believe we were on the right end of the scoreboard and what a tough game it was. They were extremely physical and really well coached, and well prepared."

Bringing championship back to Geraldton

What makes being part of a championship so special at the Buccaneers is that it means so much to the whole city of Geraldton. 

The Buccs are the biggest thing in Geraldton in a sporting sense, the home crowd atmosphere is amazing and Hunt just can't describe it any other way than pure joy to bring a championship back to the community.

"To put it into a perspective, I will use Zac Gattorna here and he came up and just said he was so happy we won and he'd never felt that happy, and that's a guy who just won an NBL championship," Hunt said.

"You speak to guys who come into our program and they're just so happy we win because everyone is with us. The whole town bleeds blue and gold, and it means everything to them so to bring a championship home to them it's much bigger than being for the team. 

"It really feels like we did it as a whole community and everyone this week isn't congratulating us for doing it, they are saying we did it and that's pretty special. We couldn’t have done this and gone undefeated at Active West without their support, those last couple of games were ridiculous with 1100 or 1200 people in that stadium where you couldn’t hear a thing.

"We averaged over 1000 people at our games all season and it's just incredible the amount of support. That's my favourite part, we've got them that redemption title now and they're so proud, but they always have our backs win, lose or draw. 

"Obviously it's much nicer when we win but it's just the pure happiness of it, I couldn’t put it any other way to bring a championship back home. It's just so great to be able to do it again."

Turning attention to National Finals

The last thing on Hunt's mind on Saturday night after the NBL1 West championship triumph was thinking about having to play in a National Finals game six days later at HBF Arena Joondalup.

However, now that the week has progressed his excitement is building and he can't wait to get out there to take on the NBL1 East championship winning Sutherland Sharks on Friday night to open proceedings.

"The passion for it is definitely getting stronger now that we've started preparing for it and as the week goes on," Hunt said. 

"If you asked me Saturday, I probably would have been dreading thinking of playing another game, but now that we've had a training session on Tuesday and after watching some film and knowing who we're playing and the competitors that are coming over, it's pretty exciting. 

"Not only can we try to be the best team in WA now, we get to try and be the best team in Australia and that's a really, really fun thing. I want every team to throw their best shot, we'll do the same and let's see who can go and win this thing. 

"It will also be good to be on the same side as Rockingham for a weekend to support Devondrick and his boys instead of trying to stop him so that's another exciting part of it.

"We'll support Warwick and Cockburn too and we'll all get to be on the same side for once, which is very rare because usually I don’t like any other team. Now that Friday night is getting closer, we're getting much more excited to try and win this thing now."