For the second straight game, No. 4 Alabama men’s basketball never held a lead, losing to No. 15 Missouri 110-98 Wednesday night.
“They were great. We weren’t very good,” head coach Nate Oats said.
Alabama’s start to the game was underwhelming. In under three minutes, Missouri exploded to gain a 12-0 lead and made its first five shots of the contest.
Although the Crimson Tide began to find its legs offensively with a pair of 3-pointers from guard Aden Holloway, the Tigers were on a hot streak, making 12/17 from the field and 6/8 from 3 in the first 8:24 of the game, at which point the score was 31-17.
Things went from bad to worse for Alabama when guard Mark Sears was assessed an intentional foul on a Missouri fastbreak, followed by a technical foul called on Oats for throwing a clipboard. This gave Missouri four free throws and possession of the ball with 5:17 left in the half. The score was 47-28 following the possession.
The Crimson Tide trailed 59-46 at halftime, and it was the 10 turnovers and poor defensive play that dug Alabama into a hole headed into the break.
The team had a much better start coming out of the locker room than in the first half, trading buckets with Missouri and cutting the deficit to 10 in less than two minutes.
Though the squads continued to trade buckets, Alabama slowly began to climb back into the game, with Sears scoring 13 points within a four-minute span and making the score 79-73 with 9:45 left.
A quick 9-0 run for the Tigers repelled the comeback effort, giving Missouri an 88-73 lead with 7:41 left in the game.
The teams traded baskets after that and the deficit was a little as 6, but the lead was too large for the Crimson Tide to overcome, resulting in a huge win for the Tigers and back-to-back losses for Alabama.
Turnovers were an issue once again for the Crimson Tide. Oats said that he did not think that his staff employed the best gameplan for Missouri’s aggressiveness.
“We didn’t do a great job prepping our guys for their pressure,” he said.
Oats also expressed concern about his team’s effort, saying that he thought that Missouri “wanted this game a little bit more than us tonight.”
Despite the result, Sears had his highest scoring game of the season, with a team-high 35 points. He also dished out five assists.
Guard Labaron Philon was reinserted to the starting lineup and scored 14 points on 6/9 shooting, adding four assists.
Other notable performances came from Holloway, who scored 11 points off the bench on 3/6 shooting from 3, and forward Mouhamed Dioubate, who scored 13 points and pulled down 10 rebounds.
The Crimson Tide will look to get back into the win column Saturday versus No. 17 Kentucky in Tuscaloosa. The game is at 5 p.m. CT and can be streamed on ESPN.
