Nov. 7 is fast approaching. 

With Alabama football taking its bye week, Crimson Tide basketball took center stage. 

Before the Crimson Tide tips off its 2022-23 season, No. 20 Alabama held its annual charity exhibition game against the Southern Illinois Salukis inside Foster Auditorium on Saturday afternoon. 

The Crimson Tide triumphed, 73-64. 

There were both positives and negatives in Alabama’s performance. The bad news is the Crimson Tide led 73-52 before surrendering 12 unanswered points to end the game. Sloppy turnovers and bad transition defense allowed the Salukis to finish the contest inside single digits. 

“I thought it was good for us to play in front of the crowd,” head coach Nate Oats said. “I thought the students gave us good energy there. We played well for 34 minutes. I wasn’t happy with how we closed for the last six minutes, but I thought our effort was a lot better than the closed scrimmage. I just didn’t think we closed the game the way we needed to close it. I talked to our guys and said we shouldn’t be playing a scoreboard. You get up 21 with about six [minutes] to go, and I think we had four turnovers in the last four minutes and just didn’t play like we needed to on defense.” 

The good news is Alabama was the superior team for 37 minutes of the game. The Crimson Tide showed its depth and length throughout, blocking five shots and coming away with 10 steals. Alabama forced Southern Illinois into 16 turnovers. The Crimson Tide won the rebound category 46-29. 

“As far as rebounding, we did a great job on the glass, I thought our defensive energy was up,” Oats said. 

Offensively, the Crimson Tide has work to do, but showed its depth with nine different players scoring. Five-star freshman Brandon Miller led the way with 14 points and six rebounds. Ohio transfer guard Mark Sears added 13, Noah Gurley put in 12 and Nick Pringle scored 10 — including two ferocious dunks in the second half. 

Sears said that his goal in the exhibition was to get his teammates involved in any way he could. 

“I felt like we did good on the defensive side,” Miller said. “We couldn’t knock down a lot of threes, but I think that’s just a confidence thing. We played well on defense and got a dub.” 

Something Alabama prides itself on — shooting the deep ball — wasn’t its strong suit on Saturday. The Crimson Tide shot just 3-for-22 from deep. 

“I think we’re going to be a pretty good shooting team this year, but for whatever reason we didn’t shoot it well today,” Oats said. “I thought our energy on the defensive end was good and we’ll have better offensive games. All in all, I was pretty pleased with the effort today.” 

Alabama will open its regular season on Monday, Nov. 7, against Longwood University. Tipoff from Coleman Coliseum is set for 7:30 p.m. CT on SEC Network+.

Questions or comments? Email Austin Hannon (Sports Editor) at [email protected]