A standing-room-only crowd of 1800 packed into Newcastle Basketball Stadium at Broadmeadow last Sunday night and saw the Mustangs suffer a heart-breaking 65-60 loss to minor premiers Manly in the WABL grand final.

In their first WABL finals series, the Mustangs scraped through the first round of the play-offs with an 87-86 victory over Parramatta at Auburn the previous weekend, then survived another thriller against Sydney Comets in the semi-final at Broadmeadow last Saturday.

Maitland brought many supporters with them for the decider, and even converted some of their bitter rivals from the host-club Hunters into Mustangs fans - if only for one night.

Newcastle reached the WABL finals but were eliminated in the first round of the play-offs when beaten 88-75 by Sydney the same night Maitland pipped Parramatta.

Though he shot just six of 17 from the field against Manly, McGregor led the Mustangs with 18 points and 16 rebounds and was well supported at the offensive end by Josh Clifford (15 points) and Andrew Allen (13).

"Our first half was disappointing, and we were down by 13 at half-time, but to the boys' credit we came out and dug deep in the second half and showed the Mustangs' true colours, and at the end we had a chance to tie the game," said McGregor, who made the WABL All Star Five.

"For basketball in the Hunter, this is massive. The Mustangs had a great year, the Hunters had a great year, and when you see all the fans that have come and supported us, they were our MVP.

"They came here and got us going and got us as far as we did, so thank you to all our fans. Hopefully this sort of support for basketball will continue and it will grow even stronger."

Dan Proctor's long-range jumper with 19 seconds left gave the Mustangs a 64-62 victory over Sydney in their semi-final last Saturday night.

Maitland were in control for much of that match and led 51-32 late in the third quarter, but got the staggers down the stretch and needed Proctor's heroics to help them find the line.

Newcastle Hunters suffered an 84-72 loss to Ryde Bulls in the Youth League division-two men's grand final last Sunday morning. The Hunters reached the decider by pounding Parramatta 99-72 in a semi-final the previous day. Ryde qualified by beating Maitland 92-78.

Central Coast Crusaders knocked the Mustangs out of the Youth League women's division-one title race with a 72-48 victory in their semi-final last Saturday.