Alabama’s chances of winning the SEC regular season championship disappeared on Saturday, with the team losing 79-76 to Tennessee on a buzzer-beater. Here is the good, the bad and the ugly for the Crimson Tide in the loss.
The good
Guard play. Mark Sears continued his resurgent play as of late, scoring a game-high 24 points on 7/16 shooting, making all six free throws and logging four assists. He also went 4/9 from downtown and made a huge 3-pointer with 2:05 left in the game to give the Crimson Tide the lead.
Freshman Labaron Philon also had a very productive night, scoring 13 points and providing four assists. He had a career-high five steals and was very active on both sides of the ball. Late in the game, he made a big play by snagging a steal and converting it into a layup, putting Alabama up 3 with 1:15 left.
The only other Crimson Tide player to have a double-digit scoring night was another guard, Aden Holloway, who scored 11 points off the bench on 3/6 shooting from downtown.
Defensive effort until the end. For the first 39 minutes and 30 seconds of the game, the Crimson Tide was in a great position to win, mostly thanks to the defensive performance.
The communication between Alabama’s defenders was much improved. There didn’t seem to be many breakdowns, and it was hard for the Volunteers to generate open shots. Alabama held Tennessee to 42% from the field, forced 12 turnovers and allowed only seven offensive rebounds.
The bad
Struggles at the rim and on free throws. If any Alabama fan wants to look for where the team lost points in this game, start with these two areas.
The Crimson Tide only shot 65.4% from the line, making 17 of 26 attempts. This included a missed free throw with 35 seconds left and Alabama up three that helped spearhead the Tennessee comeback.
Then at the rim, Alabama only shot 16/32, leaving a lot of points in the paint.
“It’s hard to win big games like this,” head coach Nate Oats said. “You’ve gotta convert at-the-rims, and you’ve gotta convert your free throws.”
Disappointing play from big men. A big reason why the guards had to carry the torch for the Crimson Tide was the mostly nonexistent play from forward Grant Nelson and center Clifford Omoruyi.
Nelson seems to be broken offensively right now. His defensive effort was better, but he still had only 7 points on 2/8 shooting from the field, a very poor number from a big man. Omouryi wasn’t much better either, scoring only 5 points on 2/5 shooting.
The ugly
Everything in the last 30 seconds. What transpired with Alabama up 75-72 and shooting free throws with 35.1 seconds left was a very poor ending.
Philon only went 1/2 at the free-throw stripe, leaving the door more open for the Volunteers. That door swung wide open when the Crimson Tide allowed Tennessee guard Chaz Lanier to convert a layup, with Nelson fouling him while going up for the shot.
Before Lanier shot his free throw to potentially cut the lead to 1, however, Oats made a questionable decision,taking out two of his better rebounders in forward Mouhamed Dioubate and Omoruyi and instead putting in two guards.
The switch immediately backfired. Lanier missed the free throw, but Volunteers guard Jahmai Mashack snagged the offensive rebound and got fouled while doing so, giving him two free throws and the chance to tie the game, which he did. There was 31.1 to go and Alabama had the ball.
After a long possession and a jump ball with 3.6 seconds left, the Crimson Tide had an inbound on the baseline. Philon didn’t inbound the ball in time, leading to a five-second violation and Tennessee getting the ball, but Alabama had two timeouts, and either Philon or Oats could’ve called one and prevented the turnover.
Mashack drove the ball up the court and Alabama decided to play drop coverage on a screen instead of pressing up, which let him shoot and convert on an open buzzer-beating shot from deep.
In the last 30 seconds of the game, the Crimson Tide allowed a 7-0 run and went from on the brink of victory to losing a game to one of its archrivals in devastating fashion. Collapses like that are, by definition, ugly.
“I’m gonna take most of the blame for the last 30 seconds. It’s on me,” Oats said. “I feel like I failed these guys. For 39 1/2 minutes, they outplayed them.”
Alabama will look to shake off the loss on Wednesday in the team’s last home game of the season, facing off against Florida at 6 p.m. CT on ESPN2.
