PERRY Lakes remain in second position in the men's SBL standings despite a change of coach mid-season with the Hawks bouncing back in emphatic fashion last weekend with a big win over the Willetton Tigers.

The Hawks currently sit on a 15-6 record on the 2013 SBL season with five matches over the last three weekends of the campaign to go with games to come against the South West Slammers, Goldfields Giants, Wanneroo Wolves, Perth Redbacks and Cockburn Cougars.

Aside from the 13th-placed Giants who have lost nine matches on the trot, all those teams remain in the finals hunt so it's going to be a fascinating finish for the Hawks to see if they can remain in second spot come finals time and hold off the chasing Geraldton Buccaneers.

It hasn’t been all smooth sailing this season for the Hawks.

There was plenty of excitement around the arrival of Shawn Dennis as the new head coach given his impressive resume as a former NBL player and head coach, who did great things in New Zealand and most recently was assistant coach at the Perth Wildcats.

However, when he was offered the head coaching job at the Townsville Crocodiles it was an offer he couldn’t say no to and regrettably for him he had to leave the Hawks mid-season.

His assistant at Perry Lakes Charles Nix has since taken over and it has been a seamless transition.

Nixon pays much of that credit to his playing group including captain Ben Purser, Adrian Majstrovich, Corey Easley, Michael Lay and Rob Cassir.

"I've got a great bunch of guys and have been put in a very favourable position so I'm looking forward to the end of the year. Hopefully we can rattle some cages," Nix said.

"I'm lucky to have Ben Purser as a fantastic leader at the club. He sets an amazing example and I've got Adrian Majstrovich who is doing everything he can along with Corey Easley and Michael Lay. Everyone wants to learn so it's a great program to be in at the moment."

Nix has also remained in touch with Dennis since he left for Townsville and is grateful for the chance he has received now to be a head coach of an SBL team heading towards a finals campaign.

"Shawn and I have been friends for a period of time and we love to have a glass of wine while chatting about basketball for hours," he said.

"It's sad for the club to see someone of Shawn's stature leave, but I'm still in constant contact with him and he's a mentor to me. I'm in a privileged situation and I have a lot of people's support."

Nix has taken some time to adjust to being the main man in charge of a senior men's team and not benig an assistant just providing ideas and feedback to a head coach, but overall he hasn’t tried to change too much from what Dennis was running successfully.

"It's more adjusting our game style to something that I'm more comfortable with while also sticking with the program we've got just with some small tweaks. I'm fortunate that a lot of my philosophies are the same as Shawn's so defensively we can stay to the same structure," Nix said.

"It's just about making some little adjustments so I'm more comfortable. And when you've been an assistant coach for a number of years you aren’t used to being the single voice so that takes some time to adjust to.

"Usually it's me saying things to the head coach to see what he takes, but now I'm the final decision-maker."

Purser is the captain of the Hawks and continues to be one of the team's star performers, and he hasn’t found it too much of an adjustment to make to a new coach either.

"It wasn’t really a big adjustment in terms of structure. We've kept most of the same stuff offensively and defensively, it was more that Shawn is such an imposing figure and his attention to detail is second to none," Purser said.

"He would pull drills up when one little thing was out of place and the challenge has been keeping that level at training up, and keeping the energy levels at games up. That's the thing that has been slipping more so than the structure, but Nixy has done a fantastic job in a very tough situation.

"At the start of the season, I'm sure he didn’t expect to have to take over halfway through. It was meant to be a learning year for him, but I really respect what he's been able to do so far and hopefully we can continue the good form."

Article by Chris Pike