Heritage Round | Gaze and Tigers go hand in hand

Featured image: Ian Knight Photography

If you think of the Melbourne Tigers, you think of the Gaze family and Mason Gaze has spent his life at the club, and continues to represent them in the NBL1 South chasing that elusive championship with his legendary father as coach.

There's no other relationship quite as closely connected as the Gaze family is with the Tigers anywhere in Australian sport, and it's continuing to this day as coach Andrew and key player Mason chase NBL1 glory while continuing to press for the club to get back to the highest level.

And going back, Lindsay Gaze was the coach from when the Tigers joined the NBL in 1984 right up until 2005, and throughout that time Andrew became the league's greatest ever player with seven MVP awards as the father and son shared two championships as captain-coach.

Mason is now trying to do the same in the NBL1 with his dad as coach and they went ever so close last year with a stirring run to the Grand Final and now they are sitting on top of the league entering Heritage Round with a 9-2 record for 2026.

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Whatever level the Tigers are competing at, they have a rich history behind them, they have a nationally recognised brand and then very quickly they are always linked to the Gaze family for what Lindsay did as a coach, Andrew did as a player and now coach, and constant spokesperson.

And now having been born basically into the Melbourne Tigers, Mason knows no different than having the club be a big part of his life. It's where he has played all his basketball outside of attending college, and it's mighty hard for him to imagine playing anywhere else.

"I've never known anything different and I was involved with the club from birth. My older sisters played juniors, dad was involved obviously well before I was born and the same with grandpa so for me it's never been anything else," Mason said.

"It's always been the Melbourne Tigers and I've never really played any attention to any other clubs in the most respectful way.

"It's always been how I can give back to the club, how we can make the club better and grow it, and increase participation at the junior level and even at the domestic level as well with our new association with the MCBA.

"It's just about trying to grow the game through the club as much as possible and I feel like it's such a positive outlet with the junior program which I'm involved with coaching now for my fourth year.

"It's about doing as much as possible because you're seeing firsthand how much improvements the kids make from playing or coming to watch games, and seeing all the players around the club.

"It's really just such a family club and not just blood family, but once you're a Tiger, you're always a Tiger. When people leave for whatever reason, we always welcome them back with open arms and Anthony Karabatsos is a great example.

"He left and went to Casey for a bit, but he wanted to come back and straight away we said absolutely because he was always a Tiger growing up," Mason added.

"What the club does building character and having good people makes people want to come back a lot more and that's a credit to how my grandpa built it so long ago, how my dad was as a player and now how he still is today coaching our senior program which is highly connected to our juniors."

Sharing journey with legendary dad

The other question that Mason cops a lot is what is it liked to be coached by your dad, but like his association with the Tigers, he has been coached by his father much of his career so he doesn’t know any different.

There's certainly no special treatment there and Mason cops just as much, if not more, than any of his teammates and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

But overall, he does feel blessed to sharing this journey with a dad who doubles as an Australian sporting legend and with the goal for both to not only win an NBL1 championship for the Tigers, but strive to get the club back where they feel it belongs.

"He just loves coaching, he loves the club and he wants to be involved, and he wants to see success within the club and the players that he coaches," Mason said.

"He gets a lot of joy out of it and I don’t want to speak for him, but I believe he wants to see the Melbourne Tigers get back at the highest level possible which is what we're all striving for as well as our success within NBL1.

"He has coached me my whole life, he coached me all under-12s, 14s and 16s in the juniors and then he only didn’t coach me in 18s because that was when he went to Sydney to coach the Kings.

"Even then I had Mark Bradtke and Dave Peters as my coaches so I still had pretty high level coaches anyway as well as Nick Abdicevic.

"People always ask what it's like having your dad coaching you but it's hard for me to say because I don't know too much different, but I believe me he treats me like an equal and it's not like I get yelled at any more or less than anyone else, and we all know his antics I guess.

"But that comes from his passion and competitiveness, and everyone he's ever coaches he ever sees it maliciously because he just wants to win and he's been the same as a player or coach, and will do anything he can to make that happen," Mason added.

"Even when we get back in the car after a game, we never take anything with us after a win or loss, and the emotions during a game or natural, but we're still always good friends always and we're really close off the court.

"He's one of my good friends as well as my dad and coach so we have such a strong relationship where whatever happens in games we know it's just coming from wanting to win."

What a championship would mean

Mason's first full season back with the Tigers after his time at Lindenwood University and they were a long way off even being overly competitive in the NBL1 South with just a 6-16 season in 2022.

They worked up to being more competitive with a 20-24 combined record over the next two seasons and then there was a stunning run to last year's Grand Final.

Mason can't help but continue to dream of what a championship would mean not only to the Gaze family, but other long-time Tigers especially Jack Purchase.

"Obviously last year you couldn’t help but think what it would be like if we actually win once we made it to the Grand Final and it would be fantastic just because I know how much dad cares about the club he has and the love he has," Mason said.

"Being able to have that success as a coach and what comes with that not only for the glory of that season, but to build the reputation of the Tigers and how other clubs view us is something that would mean a lot to him, and to me.

"It would build another stepping stone to get the Tigers back to the next level too and winning a championship would just be unbelievable.

"There's also so many Tigers juniors so it shows there is a clear pathway for the girls and boys of the club that if you go through the program, it can lead to such success and Jack Purchase is a great example.

"He stayed at the club for a long, long time, then had some time interstate and fell out of the NBL, came back to the Tigers and we welcomed him, and he won an MVP and got back to the NBL so having success would only help us provide pathways for everyone at the club so that would be the best thing about winning championship."

Remarkable run to Grand Final

The Tigers might have just come up short in the Grand Final to the Sandringham Sabres, but the whole ride to get there including the sunning finals wins at home to the Ballarat Miners, and then on the road to the Kilsyth Cobras and Knox Raiders led to amazing celebration scenes afterwards.

"I remember walking out for the Grand Final last year and seeing all the crowd and we might have been outnumbered, but our fans were so loud with the juniors and families and friends, everyone just embraced it so much to be in that moment," Mason said.

"All us boys were just thinking how unbelievable it was and you saw it throughout the finals and I remember Tommy, Jack and I were talking about it afterwards how none of it was planned.

"Our fans just stormed the court to get around everyone and it was probably the highlight of my NBL1 career winning those games and the 15-20 minutes on the court afterwards.

"We kept rolling it over to every game too from the home game we had which was a sold out crowd to the game at Kilsyth which was mental really when we were down and out, but Harry (Froling) had the big layup and we stole that one.

"Then the Knox game when Tommy went bonkers too, all the crowd getting into it was so fantastic to bring everyone together."

2026 season so far

Coming off making the Grand Final last season, the Tigers have kept the majority of that squad together including former MVP's Wilson and Purchase while bringing in the highly-credentialed George Blagojevic and Josh Sykes.

The result so far has been winning nine of the 11 matches including the last four in-a-row heading into a double-header this weekend both at home against Keilor Thunder and the Nunawading Spectres.

Mason couldn't be happier with how things are going so far, but knows to achieve their goals they will have to continue to get better.

"We're super happy and you can't complain too much at the halfway point being 9-2," Mason said.

"If you told us that at the start of the year we'd take it in a heartbeat, but carrying over from last season we've got a lot of the main guys back outside of obviously Harry out of that starting group.

"But bringing in Josh and George, we thought we could put together a really good season and it's going well so far, but we still understand that we have a long way to go on both ends of the floor.

" We're still gelling and finding out what works and figuring out how each other plays with those inclusions of George and Josh who are such talented players.

"Although we're going well, we still understand the league is so good and competitive that we need to continue to improve to hopefully get ready for a good finals run to see if we can go all the way this year."

That hunger to go one better

There is that natural hunger after losing a Grand Final to go one better for Mason and everyone at the Tigers, but for him it's about more than that.

He still remembers how far the Tigers were coming back from when he first came back from college and even prior to that, and they had just a six-win season in 2022.

They then won 10 games in both 2023 and 2024 but didn’t finish higher than 12th before things all came together last year come finals time after they finished the regular season in sixth place at 14-8.

Because Mason is fully aware of how far the Tigers have come back from, there's plenty of motivation there to chase that ultimate success.

"Even if you look back to the past four or five years when we were really at the bottom of the table and our roster was quite thin in the most respectful way possible, then to see where we are now we feel as though we're not just an easy win for other teams anymore," Mason said.

"Teams are bringing the best versions of themselves and we know that every game we play is going to be tough because now we've got a bit of a target on us because they all want to use us to measure themselves against.

"We embrace that and enjoy the challenge because it allows us to be motivated to play at the highest level possible and it's a different feel for sure after we had that bit of a taste of success last year. With where we have come from it's different day and night in the best way possible."

Embracing different role for winning

Mason might have had seasons previously where he has had better individual numbers than he's having now including 14.1 points, 5.1 rebounds and 3.0 assists back in 2024.

But that was on a team that was never really that close to finals contention so even if his numbers are down a little at 8.0 points, 4.6 rebounds and 3.7 assists so far in 2026 he's more than happy with the role he is playing.

With Blagojevic, Sykes, Purchase and Wilson on his team along with some other more than capable scorers, Mason is happy to defer to them offensively while staying ready himself.

That's where he is enjoying the chance to take more of a playmaking role while also picking up things defensively including having 2.3 steals a game so far in 2026 which is an end of the floor he's certainly got his dad covered.

"Numbers I'm not too fussed about and back when I was a bit younger and the team wasn’t great, my numbers were a little bit better but didn’t really mean anything because we were getting smashed," Mason said.

"Now that my numbers might be down a bit, I've taken on a different role even from last year to this year playing more as a guard and getting less shots. But I'm more than OK with that because the people that are shooting the ball are very, very talented players.

"That puts us in the best position to win and I embrace that, and my role now is to try and get those guys the best shots possible. Then when it is my turn to shoot the ball with confidence and to that side of things.

"I've tried taking on more of a leadership role and then defensively I've been trying to guard one of the better players on the opposition.

"That's something a little different especially for me when it was always a bit of my weak point but I feel like I'm improving at it and am taking on bigger challenges with individual match ups and I'm embracing that each and every game."