Wollongong stunned the NBL champion Breakers 81-63 in Auckland on Friday night.
Fuelled by a pinpoint display of long-distance shooting, the Hawks reeled off a 14-3 run in the final period to thwart any hope of a Breakers comeback.
Hawks point guard Rhys Martin led all scorers with 19 points and power forward Joevan Catron scored 10.
CJ Bruton paced the Breakers with just 10 points, while Mika Vukona finished with 12 boards.
When Bruton struck from afar the home lead was 24-21 after the first quarter, the hosts' defensive effort forcing Wollongong into seven turnovers.
The Breakers were rarely in the contest after that point, however, with veteran Glen Saville hitting a three-pointer and turnaround jumper to put the Hawks in front midway through the second period.
New Zealand needed a spark in the third quarter, but instead it lost one.
After Hawks marksmen Mat Campbell and Larry Davidson put Wollongong ahead 48-40, Breakers point guard Cedric Jackson aggravated his injured ankle driving to the basket.
The Hawks immediately capitalised, extending their margin into double figures with another Campbell strike and a jumper from Tyson Demos.
Jackson returned and fed centre Alex Pledger for an alley-oop to bring New Zealand to within five, but Martin and Catron sank back-to-back threes to silence the crowd.
From there Wollongong answered every challenge, Martin the mastermind as the visitors recorded one of the biggest upsets of the season.
"The last three games we've lost, we've been in a position to actually win," Wollongong coach Gordie McLeod said.
"So the guys obviously learnt from that tonight.
"We did a good job handling the disruptive defence the Breakers threw at us, we made some shots when we needed to keep them at bay and our defence stood strong for us.
"Any team is vulnerable in this league. All it takes is a couple of guys to be slightly off their game and you're in trouble."
Breakers coach Andrej Lemanis rued his team's 36 per cent scoring conversion.
"At the start, we had some open looks that we missed and we got frustrated. We got rushed and started second-guessing ourselves a little bit," said Lemanis.
"That just seemed to snowball into a performance where we just couldn't find out rhythm at the end of the day."
AAP
Tags: nbl, basketball, sport, new-zealand, wollongong-2500, nsw, australia First posted November 11, 2011 21:14:28
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