The Adelaide 36ers slumped to 0-4 on the road after suffering a late protein deficiency in Wollongong.
While the 36ers can't win on the road, neither can the Hawks, so was the home team aided by a 'home crowd advantage'?
On the surface it's not likely the 'official' count of 2329 spectators on Friday would make much impact, however when needed the crowd responded with plenty of noise.
A similar sized crowd witnessed the Hawks pull off a miraculous comeback the previous week against the Wildcats, saving their loudest for the final moments, but the thrilling victory failed to spark any more interest for the Sixers game.
The Hawks are drawing an official 'average' of 2504 fans in their first four games in the 'Gong, this is an anaemic amount and also smells like a generous representation.
Crowd numbers are often inflated from the real raw number and sometimes even withheld, for example the crowd number at the Sydney Spirit vs. South Dragons game held on the same night at the SEC was not announced with some sources noting there was less then 1000 people in attendance.
With 2000 more butts on seats the WEC would truly be rocking and possibly making enough noise to have an effect on the outcome.
What happened to those good old fashioned raucous crowds that make the opposition uncomfortable, let them how much they're hated, how hard their going lose and let them know precisely why they suck so bad.
Fortunately on this occasion the Hawks had one chemically enhanced lunatic patrolling the front row like a recently laid-off Premier League Hooligan.
He might have made up for 1000 absent fans.
He didn't spare any Sixer, letting each and every player in yellow know exactly where they stood.
Import Mark Tyndale bore the brunt of harassment, dubbing him "an export" and "on the next economy flight out of Adelaide'', with the emphasis on 'economy' all night.
Rookie Aaron Bruce; "you're nothing Seven! You're nothing! You're always going to be nothing! Seven! Nothing! SEVEN! NOTHING!
Brett Maher was an easy target for his age and choice of socks and as a former Hawk Adam Ballinger attracted a fair amount of attention.
Equally significant, the specialist heckler gave considerable thought to the referees, dishing out some serious venom to our resident Harry High Pants, who now simply became "Cummerbund".
He jumped on the less experienced refs, pin-pointing 'rookie calls', on top of unleashing various colourful personal attacks and fantastic insults.
(Note: Refs are fair game, they should be ruthlessly unloaded upon at every given opportunity. Give these guys hell, they know what the signed up for.)
Super Heckler played all 48 minutes, broke a mean sweat and at the end celebrated the much-needed win as if he was a member of the team.
It would be nice to think this guy somehow contributed to Adelaide's demise.
In the current state of the NBL we need more fanatics like this attending, but more importantly we need more people in general, anybody, where did everyone go?
