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WAYBACK Wednesday was a weekly feature I wrote last season for Adelaide 36ers website, which now you can revisit, see for the first time or completely ignore!

ADELAIDE 36ERS V SYDNEY KINGS

SYDNEY ENTERTAINMENT CENTRE, APRIL 25, 1992

DWAYNE “D-Train” McClain was one of the biggest names the Kings had signed in the club’s brief history.

A 198cm swingman, he enjoyed a memorable college career at storied Villanova University, including winning the 1985 NCAA championship.

Taken in the second round of the NBA’s 1985 draft by Indiana Pacers, he played a year in The Show before stints in France and the CBA.

He was MVP of the CBA’s 1989 All Star game and toured Australia as a member of Kareem Abdul Jabbar’s Travelling Daedels for a series against the Boomers that same year.

That marked the first time he and Adelaide 36ers centre Mark Bradtke crossed swords.

It would happen again on Anzac Day at the SEC when Bradtke turned in a career-game for the Sixers against the Kings.

Bradtke produced a career-high 34 points at 67 per cent and paired that with 19 rebounds – three short of his (then) career-high – to put Adelaide into a winning position, ahead 99-98 with heartbeats left.

But McClain took the ball coast-to-coast to score the game-winner on the siren, enjoying the moment with Kings fans who already loved their charismatic import.

The D-Train already was well-known for a McDonalds TV ad and had commercial deals with City Rail and Reebok.

In his downtime, he was the king of Sydney’s nightclub scene and as popular as any athlete in Aussie Rules, cricket or rugby league.

But this was the night McClain cemented his legacy in a year which would see him average 28.6ppg and be named in the NBL All Star Five First Team.

For  Adelaide, it meant it's disastrous season continued with consecutive road losses, following the West End 36ers' 118-113 crash at Newcastle the previous night.

The Kings led 52-51 at halftime but Adelaide swept ahead by eight, largely on the strength of Bradtke’s game and a 28-point, 18-rebound support role by his frontcourt partner Mark Davis.

A succession of 3-point baskets by Damian Keogh and Peter Hill put the Kings back into contention in the game’s dying stages.

Adelaide grabbed the lead with seven seconds on the clock, only to be nonplussed as McClain produced the solo moment for which he best would be, and is, remembered.

Dean Uthoff topscored for the Kings with 25 points and 20 rebounds, McClain next with 23.

The tragedy of losing in the manner Adelaide did was that so much good work was left unrequited.

Lost in the pall of the Kings' last gasp win was the magnitude of Bradtke's performance, the manner in which Butch Hays spread the clogging Sydney zone with his penetrations and Davis' odds-beating efforts.

The obvious question then was that if so much went right, how did Adelaide lose?

Pretty simple.

McClain produced a few seconds of individual brilliance for which the 36ers had no answer.