A THRILLING final weekend of the regular season saw two victories for Leopards which, along with other results going their way, sealed home court advantage in the play-offs.

The Big Cats will now host Tees Valley Mohawks at the Brentwood Centre on Saturday evening (tip-off 7pm) in a repeat of the National Trophy final.

Robert Youngblood’s side produced another stunning comeback to win 94-91 at Mohawks on Saturday before an excellent second half defensive performance at Team Northumbria on Sunday saw them win 89-79.

The Big Cats finished level with Mohawks and Leeds Carnegie with a 16-10 record as both sides lost their two games over the weekend, but won three of the four games against the northern pair and took fourth spot on head-to-head decider.

On Saturday Greg Hernandez led the way for the Big Cats with 28 points, 13 rebounds and four assists, while Carl Josey hit five three-pointers on the way to a 19 point, eight rebound game.

The Big Cats had a brief lead in the first period and then trailed by as many as 16 in the third period until Rowell Graham put them ahead with 94 seconds remaining, and they never looked back.

Graham added 14 points and eight boards for the Brentwood team while Simon Cummings finished with 12 points, nine assists, eight rebounds and four steals.

The following day saw Northumbria held scoreless for over six, third period minutes as the Big Cats turned a one point half-time advantage into a 68-51 lead at the final break, and they went on to seal a home quarter-final in the competition they won a year ago.

Hernandez again led the Big Cats, finishing with 21, while Cummings added 16 and Lawrence Brown had one of his best games with 15 points.

The Big Cats will hope to have Graham, who missed the game with an ankle injury, and Youngblood, who played just a single minute over the weekend due to an injured shoulder, back for the game at Brentwood.

Coach Youngblood said: “I’m very pleased with both games. We went up there to get two wins and hope the basketball Gods would help up.

“They were looking down on us, and to get a top four finish was one of our goals at the start of the season. We’ve achieved two of our goals as we’ve already won the Trophy, and now we want to win the play-offs.

“We refuse to lose – that’s been our motto and we’ll stick to that. Sometimes we play better from behind, and when we’re ahead we can be lackadaisical. I’m very happy with how we’ve played since we lost Taner Adu and I was worried how his injury was effect us.

“Duane Camile’s been excellent and Lawrence Brown showed me this weekend that he do what I signed him for.”