After securing a second NBL1 East title, the Canberra Gunners cannot wait to take on the best of NBL1.

When the NBL1 National Finals were confirmed for Canberra back in early July, the big hope within both the NBL and Basketball ACT was for some degree of local representation.

The Gunners’ fantastic 99-91 win over Illawarra in the NBL1 East Grand Final ensured this would happen, and the surge in ticket sales since has been a welcome development for the event.

For the Gunners, it’s meant their celebrations couldn’t carry on forever, and the hard work preparing for the Nationals is well and truly underway.

While the idea of playing the National Finals was only in the backs of minds, coach Pete Herek admitted he deliberately ignored it as much as he could.

“I’ve been thinking about winning East,” he told local media in Canberra this week.

“I worry about what’s in front of me, and not what’s in the future.

“Now I’m going to worry about it a lot! It’s going to be a lot of work!” he laughed.

But Herek said preparing for interstate teams won’t be a whole lot different to getting ready for NBL1 East teams.

“It’s the same as any team we face, in that we haven’t seen them before, so we won’t necessarily know everyone intimately, but we’ll definitely be doing our due diligence.”

Herek admitted to a huge sense of relief when the final buzzer sounded in Penrith, after the Gunners had won and lost against the minor premier Hawks already in 2025, and with the League taking a step up since their first NBL1 East title in 2022.

“I think it was by far the toughest one, for sure. Every Grand Final win is sweet, there’s no one that’s better than another, but I would say this one was way tougher,” he said.

“NBL level athletes playing across the League, and our guys stepped up to that challenge and met it, and in the end, won.”

Morison says his team now can’t wait to cross paths with the other NBL1 conference champions next weekend, especially for the fact they’ll be able to do in familiar surrounds.

“We’re very motivated. We’re not satisfied yet,” he said, about want to complete the League-Nationals double.

“We want to win this on our home court, and we want to do it for our fans.

“It’s going to be a good full circle moment, playing a national tournament in Tuggeranong. I grew up playing on those courts since I was 9 or 10 years old, the old St. Eddies basketball teams, and to be on the national stage, it’s going to be a fantastic feeling.”

The concurrent timing of the National Finals and the NBL Blitz in Canberra the same week mean that some teams will be more impacted than others with the availability of NBL-contracted players.

But the presence of the NBL teams in Canberra also represents a great chance for the Gunners to be seen by more professional teams than would otherwise be the case.

“There’s at least three or four Gunners that definitely could be competing at that higher level,” Herek said. “Glenn being one of them, he’s going to Sweden, which is exciting for him.”

“Guys like Will Mayfield, James Toohey, Derek Emelifeonwu, even a young guy like Cameron Pender, they are all guys that teams should be looking at.

“Hopefully, we can get in front of some people and have some conversations and say, ‘Hey, get this guy down for a look’.”

Morison figures strong performances in the National Finals mean NBL attention will follow naturally. So, on that point, he’s already ready to learn the lessons of their last Nationals appearance.

“In 2022 we took our foot off the pedal for one quarter, and that lost us the entire opportunity to win the national championship,” he said.

“Now we’ve just got to come in knowing it’s got to be foot to floor, 40-minute games every game in order to win.”

Tickets for the NBL1 Nationals Finals are available at Intix.