THERE'S still a mountain of games to come, but Illawarra coach Brian Goorjian feels back to back wins to finish the NBL Cup could prove the defining moments of his team's season.
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The Hawks Cup campaign looked to have bottomed out with a dismal showing against Perth to slump to 2-4 for the tournament and risk of dropping out of the top four for the first time this season.
Instead, they produced an incredible resurgence to stun Sydney and Melbourne United in the space of three days. Goorjian said the performances proved an emphatic answer to questions he put to his team in the lead-up to the Kings clash.
"I said to the group before the Sydney game 'this is a defining moment'," Goorjian said.
"When you're building something [new], you're going to take some punches but, physically and mentally, we were in a hole. I said 'you're in that hole now and we're going to find out a lot about each other tonight, win or lose' and we did.
"Where we went in the Sydney game was special and then you think Melbourne had lost a couple, they needed that one desperately.
"There was prize-money involved for them...it was a character test and I said to the guys 'when you get on that plane and come back to Wollongong feel really good about yourself'."
After arriving back in Wollongong on Sunday, Goorjian admits he and his side aren't relishing jumping back on one ahead of Sunday's rematch with United back in Melbourne.
Read more: Hawks run on the road character revealing
It gets tougher the following round with a trip west to Perth to take on the in-form Wildcats on Friday week before hosting Brisbane in just their second game in Wollongong three days later.
Only New Zealand can lay claim to a tougher schedule but, while he acknowledges the challenge, Goorjian says his team have never used it as an excuse.
"We're going to Perth and Melbourne, two of the top teams in the competition after 14 games on the road," Goorjian said.
"It is a rough schedule, no question about it, but the group don't talk about it, they don't look at what other teams are doing and compare the schedule at all.
"There's no complaints. We're being challenged in every sense of the word but [I hear] no excuses, there's no backward steps.
"They're enjoying then challenge, they're happy to be back here in Wollongong to take a deep breath and it's going to be a big one going back to Melbourne, after just beating them, to play them again on their home court."
With a more permanent return to Wollongong looming, Goorjian is adamant he has a team the Illawarra faithful can be proud of.
"I keep talking about this special group to the community and it's not because it's perfect," Goorjian said.
"We're going to get whacked, we're going to get beat but [we've played]15 games, 14 of them on the road. We've had one game at home when we traveled on the day of the game and played an undefeated team.
"That's been our schedule to this point. In that [NBL Cup] everyone was saying we're flash in the pan, we had good start but 'they're back to the slop, they're nothing'.
"I kept saying to the group 'we're more than that'. The character of the team, in those games when our arses were on fire, shined through. I think it's something to be proud of."