THE Albury-Wodonga Bandits farewelled club stalwart Nick Payne in the best way possible on Saturday night with a resounding 105-81 road win against the Brisbane Spartans.
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In his 401st — and final — SEABL game, Payne scored 14 points and grabbed six rebounds as the Bandits defeated the Spartans in Brisbane for the first time since the Queensland outfit’s entry to the league in 2007.
Albury-Wodonga’s seventh victory of the season meant the Border club leap-frogged Brisbane and Knox to finish fifth in the East conference on percentage, seven wins behind fourth-placed Ballarat.
The Spartans scored the first basket of the game but it would be the only time the Bandits trailed in a dominant performance led by import forward Lamar Mallory.
Mallory scored a game-high 26 points — including several emphatic alley-oop dunks — and added 17 rebounds to take his double-digit rebounding streak to 10 straight games.
He received plenty of offensive help from fellow import Deuce Briscoe (18 points), Payne and pivot Alex Opacic (13 points, seven rebounds).
But it was the contributions of the Bandits’ bench players, especially Sawyer Dearborn, that had coach Brad Chalmers feeling largely satisfied after the win.
“Really great win, everyone played well and just a really good way to send Payney off,” Chalmers said.
“We had an even spread of scorers and we probably should’ve put them (Brisbane) to the sword.
“They went to the free-throw line 41 times and if you take that away, they really had trouble scoring.
“I’m not getting too carried away with it, it’s a good way for us to finish the season.
“But that’s two years in a row the back half of the season has been pretty good.
“So the test now is, we’ve got to do that from the start, we can’t afford to get in a 3-8 hole again next year.
“We just have to get it right and give ourselves every chance, and that’s something we haven’t done the past two years.”
Chalmers said Mallory’s performances since replacing injured centre Momo Ntumba meant he would be given plenty of consideration for a return to the Bandits next year.
“He was fantastic, had a couple of dunks that were as high as I’ve ever seen anyone jump,” Chalmers said.
“He’s a good guy, as raw as they come and that’s probably the only issue.
“Does he have the capability to drive us to the playoffs?
“He’s a great complementary piece and it might take two years for us to see his best, so we’ll see.
“But he certainly did his chances (of coming back) no harm.”
