Toronto Raptors Superfan Nav Bhatia joined fans at the North campus Nest on Jan. 14 to watch the Hawks beat their Fanshawe Falcons rivals.
He was honoured during halftime and was given his own Humber Hawks jersey signed by all the varsity players during halftime at the Jan. 14 game.
Bhatia is no stranger to special occasions, having received an honourary degree from Humber.
“A lot, you know it’s like that’s love, you know every time I get honoured I consider that’s the love coming from the people,” Bhatia said. “I started my life in Rexdale and Etobicoke. Also, I was given my honourary degree here, so I guess I’m a member of the Humber now.”
Bhatia has been a basketball fan since he came to Canada in 1984 and told student athletes to never give up.
“Keep doing it, keep doing your passion, don’t let anyone tell you you can’t do it, keep on doing it, do what you want to do because it is possible to do,” the successful auto dealer said.
The Hawks won convincingly with a final score of 75-61, which pushed the team to 10-1 and stay in first in the OCAA Western Conference. Fanshawe fell to under .500, with a 5-6 record, sitting fifth in the conference.
“Always just take care of business, right, play for all the right reasons, which is winning and winning with grace and doing it collectively as a team,” Hawks head coach Omar Miles said.
“Trying to match Fanshawe’s intensity and physicality and just be ready to play from the start,” Miles said. “Play hard and ride the wave not too high, not too low.”
Fanshawe assistant coach David Hocking said the key to winning is playing hard and getting dirty in the paint.
“They’re big and physical, a lot of veterans on this squad, and obviously they’ve played big games, so they’re ready for any moment,” Hocking said. “Just gotta play hard, every loose ball, every rebound, that’s what these games are going to come down to. Not shooting, it’s going to come down to who does the dirty work.”
Humber fifth-year standout player Malik Grant was sidelined with an injury, but teammates Adrian Aluyi, Dwayne Burke and Christian Desjardins stepped up by finishing with 10 or more points.
The game began sloppily with three turnovers. The first points came when third-year Hawk small forward Benni Kazadi finished a tough layup, which came with a foul, resulting in a 3-0 start.
After the game was tied at 6-6, Humber quickly built up momentum and built a 14-6 lead, which led to the first timeout of the game by the Falcons.
After the timeout, the Hawks remained in the driver's seat the rest of the game.
With playoffs around the corner, the team's drive is a major factor in the final stretch.
“All momentum is carried off, I feel like you see it in us at home, we have that energy going so we’re giving it up to the fans and our bench,” second-year Hawks shooting guard Dwayne Burke said. “We got that momentum going and we’ll just keep it going into the new year.”
Burke, who was named player of the game, said he was happy with the effort the team brought and is looking forward to them building off this win.
“It’s all about our intensity, we had a game early in the season versus Fanshawe where we kind of slacked on the boards, so it was going back to just being intense on the boards, fighting,” Burke said.
