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The Albury-Wodonga Bandits showed their championship fighting qualities yesterday with an inspired come-from-behind win over a brave Geelong at the Lauren Jackson Sports Centre.
In front of a raucous home crowd, the defending title-holders stormed back from 17 points down in the third quarter to over-run the visitors in a thriller 93-88, the Bandits’ first home win over the Supercats since 2003.
US import Eric Vann sparked the comeback with 16 final-quarter points — including several three-pointers and dunks — to finish with a game-high 39 points.
Young guard Jack Duck enjoyed perhaps the finest game of his career with 18 points, pivot Momo Ntumba took just seven shots but finished with an ultra-efficient 15 points and eight boards and Ben Hollis added another double-double of 10 points and 14 rebounds.
For Geelong, which was without import Theron Wilson and former NBL guard Nathan Herbert, American swingman Mike Mercer top-scored with 23 points, while power forward Ash Cannan worked hard for 22 points.
Bandits coach Brad Chalmers was a relieved man afterwards, acknowledging that an insipid first half had almost cost the Border outfit dearly.
“I think when you get back to playing the way we need to play, it’s clearly evident we can be a very good team,” Chalmers said.
“When you don’t want to do the fundamental, 1 per cent things, you just go through the motions, you’re going to lose more games than not.
“But I’m really happy for Eric, he’s finding his feet, defensively he was much better.”
After a slow start, the visitors stepped it up with a 13-2 run to establish a handy 22-16 advantage at the first break.
Geelong continued to work its offence with precision, in stark contrast to the stagnant efforts from the Border club — which was without skipper Nick Payne, out with a shoulder injury — and found itself trailing by 15 points, 52-37, at the half.
In a frantic third term, the Bandits tried to eat into the Geelong advantage but the Supercats always had an answer.
Trailing by eight to open the final stanza, a Vann steal and dunk gave the home crowd some hope and a Duck layup and Ntumba bucket cut the lead to 80-77 with five minutes to play.
Back-to-back threes from Vann gave them the lead for the first time since the opening quarter and pandemonium followed a dunk from Vann that pushed the margin to 87-84.
The teams traded baskets before a Vann transition layup with 20.7 seconds left made it 91-88.
Geelong’s Dominic Friend missed what would’ve been the tying triple and Vann closed out a famous win at the free throw line.
