It will also be the season the Hawks rue as one of lost opportunities.

Saturday night's 97-95 home loss to Townsville marked the ninth time this season the Hawks have been involved in a game decided by five points or less.

Of those down-to-the-wire thrillers, Wollongong have won four.

"In all my years, you normally say there's about three games a year you think you should've won. To have nine or 10 games when you look back and think you should've won, that's our season right there," Hawks captain Mat Campbell said.

"At three-quarter time (against Townsville) we were in a good position to win the game and we just didn't get it done in the last quarter. They score 26 in the last quarter to our 16 and we lose by two. It's been one of those years for us."

Campbell believes most of his team's shortcomings are at the defensive end.

"We still haven't locked in on the defensive side of it," the one-time Australian Boomers guard said.

"As soon as we start rolling a bit offensively we go through the lapse where it almost doesn't matter if one of their guys scores. It's like 'We're 10 points up, someone got a three but it doesn't matter, we're still up seven'. But then they get another easy one and another and all of a sudden their confidence is up.

"We don't have that killer instinct to be able to lock teams down every time down the court, and that's disappointing.

"At practice we work harder on each other than we do in a game."

Hawks coach Eric Cooks felt his side worked hard for three quarters against the Crocs before letting yet another victory slip away.

"That's a game we definitely should've won," Cooks said.

"We had some pretty good effort and energy out there, but we just had lapses. It's the same old story.

"In those type of games, everybody's hungry to make the play-offs, and any lapse hurts you. We had some turnovers late in the game and you can't have those lapses consistently and expect to make the play-offs.

"I did play a few guys quite a few extra minutes but I thought they were the ones that wanted to play.

"It's important that you come out and bust your arse every day at training and come out ready to play like you want to stay out there."

The ninth-placed Hawks (9-17) host second-placed Melbourne on Friday night.