How Hyrum Harris and the Perth Wildcats turned their season around

The Wildcats have dominated since making Harris a starter, but it's the team's trust and belief in each other that has lifted them to new heights.

Less than three months ago, the Perth Wildcats were a team in turmoil. After back-to-back seasons finishing outside the top four, a new-look roster brought heightened expectations to a team and fanbase that craves success. Instead, they stumbled out of the gates looking worse than ever, with a 2-5 record leaving them languishing near the foot of the ladder.

Just five rounds into the new season, the entire Wildcats organisation was under fire. The team was booed off the court after a loss to Brisbane, as was coach John Rillie at a post-game members’ function. Rachel Cotton, wife of star Wildcat Bryce, took to social media to defend her husband as he too copped criticism for a slow start. Team owner Craig Hutchison was forced to publicly defend himself and his team, Rillie did the same, and yet plenty were still calling for both of their heads.

All the while, the team looked disjointed, dysfunctional, and out of their depth on the court. Was that cause for concern? Definitely. Was it time to panic? Maybe for the media and the fans, but not inside the four walls of Perth’s locker room. 

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“Internally, we all had a sense of belief, like this is going to turn around,” Wildcats forward Hyrum Harris told The Pick and Roll. “We all believed that eventually our time would come and all the hard work we’d put in in this preseason and even early on in the regular season, it’s not going to be for nothing.”

That’s easy to say that now, but it’s the same message that Rillie and countless players preached even as the Wildcats struggled. Their patience has paid off in a big way, with that slow start followed by a six-game winning streak that jolted their season to life. Now, after winning 11 of their last 13 games, they’ve climbed all the way up to second on the ladder and established themselves as a genuine title contender. Most importantly, they’ve separated themselves from the chasing pack and joined Melbourne United as the frontrunners for a top-two finish and a guaranteed semi-final berth.

After battling through tough losses and a barrage of criticism from all angles, the Wildcats are a team forged in fire and now look stronger than ever.

“Winning will solve a lot of problems, losing magnifies problems… that’s going to test a lot of people, and a lot of people wouldn’t come out better on the other end,” Harris said. “I couldn’t give you a specific moment or an exact game that we thought ‘oh, we’re serious about this’, we kind of just didn’t let anyone else affect our mentality or how we were going to approach every game.”

That might seem a little simplistic, and there have certainly been other changes and tweaks to the team’s game plan that have helped them to get back on track. Still, rather than looking any deeper to better understand the team’s resurgence, perhaps it’s their early losses that need to be viewed differently.