Alabama’s men’s basketball team fell to Oregon 83-81 in the Players Era Festival championship game Saturday night.
The Crimson Tide got off to a good start, scoring 17 points in the first six minutes of the contest and jumping out to a 5-point lead. Oregon held Alabama at arm’s reach throughout the rest of the half and grabbed its first lead of the game at 24-23 with 8:28 remaining.
Following a 7-0 Oregon run, the Crimson Tide went into the locker room with the score tied at 39 despite having 11 more field goal attempts than the Ducks.
Alabama’s primary issue in the first half was turnovers. It committed 9 and allowed 9 points off of turnovers in the opening frame.
“Turnovers have been kind of haunting us here in Vegas,” head coach Nate Oats said.
Good 3-point shooting kept the Crimson Tide in the game early. It had 6 makes from deep in the first half, 4 of which came from guards Labaron Philon and Latrell Wrightsell Jr.
At the beginning of the second half, Oregon jumped to a 56-46 lead, and Alabama continued to turn the ball over and shot 25% from the field in the first 9 minutes of the period.
However, the Crimson Tide would not go away. It quickly went on a 12-4 run to cut the Oregon lead to 60-58 with 9:05 left to play. This run resulted from defensive stops and a major improvement in offensive efficiency, better protecting the ball and finding high-quality shots.
Both teams then went on short busts of scoring, resulting in a 70-67 lead in favor of Alabama with 4:58 remaining in the second half.
With an 8-1 run, the Ducks took the lead, and with a minute remaining in the game, they were hanging onto a 77-75 advantage.
After missed shots and Oregon free throws that appeared to ice the game, Alabama continued to fight. Guard Aden Holloway hit a 3-pointer, and a steal off the Oregon inbound resulted in timely free throws from guard Mark Sears and, after an offensive rebound of a Sears miss, from forward Mouhamed Dioubate.
The Ducks got the ball back and converted on a putback dunk with just seconds to play in the game.
With 4.5 seconds left on the clock, down 83-81, Sears looked to get a quick pass off to forward Grant Nelson to try and tie the game. Nelson couldn’t get the shot off before time expired, sealing the Oregon win.
“We learned a lot about ourselves,” Oats said of the loss. “We learned what we have to fix. We have to get back to the drawing board and fix some stuff.”
Philon was the Crimson Tide’s leading scorer on the evening, putting up 15 points, shooting 2/2 from 3 and logging 7 rebounds with a pair of assists.
Sears ended the game with 11 points and shot only 1/11 from deep. He also added 5 assists and 4 rebounds.
“We didn’t shoot it particularly well in stretches tonight,” Oats said. “But we’re going to have games like that, and we’re going to have to be able to overcome some poor shooting nights.”
Forward Jarin Steveson, who got off to a rough start to the season by missing his first 18 3-point attempts, scored 11 points on 3/4 shooting from behind the arc and notched 5 rebounds.
“This was the Jarin we were looking for this year,” Oats said. “It’s great that he hung in there and got his confidence going.
Nelson had a team-high 6 assists and scored 7 points.
Alabama suffered a major blow to its rotation after Wrightsell fell early in the first half with a lower leg injury. This comes after the established team leader missed significant time last season due to injuries.
“He’s got a lower leg injury,” Oats said. “They’re concerned about his achilles, which obviously wouldn’t be good. They’re going to evaluate him once we get back. He’ll get an MRI and see what we got going on. We’re keeping our fingers crossed.”
The Crimson Tide will return to the floor on Wednesday in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to face the North Carolina Tar Heels at the Dean Smith Center. The game can be streamed at 6:15 p.m. CT on ESPN.
