After a thrilling overtime victory over Ballarat on Friday night, the Bandits were simply overwhelmed by a bigger Cobras outfit that forced the Border club into a horrid shooting game with a superior defensive performance.

The Bandits shot a woeful 19-73 (26 per cent) from the field, with captain Nick Payne (11 points) and import Ryan Bright (10 points, 13 rebounds) the only players to crack double digits in the Border outfit’s first defeat of the season.

Kilsyth centre Tim Lang led all scorers with 16 points, forward Matt O’Hea scored 14 points, and former Bandits star Fernandez Lockett enjoyed his first win over his old team with 13 points and 11 boards but missed seven of the 12 shots he attempted.

The Snakes held the visitors to just 29 points over the first three quarters before the Bandits gained a faint vestige of competitiveness by drawing the Cobras 18-18 in the final period when the game was well and truly past salvaging.

Bandits coach Ian Gallaway admitted Kilsyth’s size made it difficult for his side to get good shots at the offensive end.

“I guess we were going to see something like this sooner or later and they’re a pretty good team,” Gallaway said.

“They’re really big across the board, their starting line-up is all 195cm-plus and I reckon they’re a top-three team with their size and athleticism.

“It’s a good measuring stick for us, I think we had a rough shooting game but their defence pushed us out and we probably tried a bit too much one-on-one stuff to try to beat it.

“We took a lot of quick shots, we were throwing them up in a hurry, there weren’t any open shots, everything was contested going to the rack and we probably made some bad shot selections once we got down a bit.”

Despite the loss, Gallaway said he was satisfied with a split of the weekend’s games.