IT wasn’t pretty, and it was certainly costly for the Albury-Wodonga Bandits.
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Friday night’s 88-80 loss to the North-West Tasmania Thunder means the Bandits face an increasingly treacherous road back to the top four of the Eastern conference.
The loss, the team’s fifth straight, leaves them stuck with an 8-11 record with five games left to play in the regular season.
The Bandits unveiled a new recruit, 203-centimetre forward Obe Kyei, who will fill the gap left by the injured duo of Mitch Newton and Darcy Harding.
Having only met his new teammates for the first time on Thursday, Kyei performed admirably, logging nine points and six rebounds in his first outing at the Lauren Jackson Sports Centre.
TJ Robinson, fresh from being named SEABL Player of the Month earlier in the week, notched yet another double-double, while Deba George dropped 25 points.
After a sluggish first half, the Bandits came to life in the third quarter, outscoring the visitors 21-9 and taking a one-point lead into the final stanza.
They extended the lead to four by the half-way mark of the final quarter, but things began to unravel down the stretch.
Scores were level with just over two minutes to play, but two big threes and a pair of clutch free throws from former Bandit Daniel Sepokas increased the margin to five with less than a minute to play.
Though the Bandits extended the game with intentional foul, they weren’t able to hit back, ultimately falling by eight points.
Head coach Brad Chalmers said their poor execution on both ends late in the game came back to bite them.
“We did some good things in the third quarter, keeping them to nine points, our offence dried up a little bit and we let them score 28,” he said.
“It was probably a tale of our defence falling away and some poor execution towards the end of the game.
“No team can lose good players and expect to perform well, but I don’t want to use that as an excuse.”
The Bandits face Ballarat in Albury next Friday.