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Eastern Washington University Basketball

Winning down under: Ex-Eastern Washington standouts Tyler Harvey, Mason Peatling celebrate Australian league title

Former Eastern Washington stars Mason Peatling, left, and Tyler Harvey helped guide the Illawarra Hawks to the NBL championship over Melbourne United. (Getty Images)
By Dave Cook The Spokesman-Review

They left Eastern Washington University as two of the most decorated basketball players in school history. Now, playing together in Australia’s top professional league, Tyler Harvey and Mason Peatling can add National Basketball League champions to their impressive resumes.

Harvey and Peatling helped lead the Illawarra Hawks to a long-awaited NBL championship on Sunday, beating Melbourne United 114-104 to capture the best-of-five series. Coincidentally, a third former Eagles basketball star, Felix Von Hofe, was on the country-wide television broadcast and hosted pregame and postgame coverage.

Harvey, a 6-foot-4 guard who topped the nation in scoring in 2015 at 23.1 points per game and led Eastern Washington to the NCAA Tournament that year, is in his fifth year at Illawarra, a first-team All-NBL performer who was the Hawks’ leading scorer at 17.9 points per game.

The last remaining original franchise in the NBL, Illawarra had not won a championship since 2001, losing three times in the finals before finally breaking through this year.

“It means a lot,” Harvey said in a televised postgame interview, after winning in front of nearly 6,000 fans on his team’s home court in the coastal town of Wollongong. He had 16 points and seven rebounds in the final, but his signature moment came in the pivotal second game, when Harvey hit a winning 3-pointer and scored 24 points to keep the Hawks from going down 0-2 to Melbourne United, led by former NBA and Saint Mary’s great Matthew Dellavadova.

The 6-8 Peatling, who arrived in Cheney the year after Harvey left, was a three-year starter for the Eagles and the Big Sky Conference Most Valuable Player in 2020. He started at power forward for much of the year for Illawarra, providing rebounding and toughness. But in the final game, he was saddled with foul trouble and had just three points and four rebounds.

Von Hofe was a sophomore on the Harvey-led NCAA Tournament team in 2015, and played two more seasons seasons with Peatling, leaving EWU as its all-time leader in 3-point shots. “(Illawarra) got it done on their home court,” Von Hofe said during his postgame analysis. “The Hawks were too good.”