No. 7 Alabama men’s basketball fell to No. 5 Florida 99-94 at home Wednesday night. The loss is the team’s fourth in its last six games.
Three early turnovers and a poor shooting start resulted in a 15-8 lead for the Gators in the first six minutes of the game. A dunk from Alabama forward Aiden Sherrell sparked the offense, leading to an 11-0 run for the Crimson Tide and giving the team a 19-15 lead with 11:28 left in the half.
Florida responded by forcing Alabama’s offense to dry up, scoring 9 points to Alabama’s 2 and grabbing a 27-23 lead with 8:01 on the clock.
The Crimson Tide offense appeared to be back on track, scoring 8 straight points, but the spurt was quickly answered by a 9-0 run for the Gators, who took a 36-31 lead at the 3:44 mark in the first half.
The runs continued with the next nine straight points from Alabama, including a pull-up 3-pointer from guard Mark Sears. Florida got the next five and took a 41-40 lead into the locker room.
Much like in Saturday’s loss to Tennessee, the Crimson Tide left points off the board in the form of missed layups. The team made just 7/16 in the first half.
It was a tightly contested start to the second half as the teams traded buckets, but Sherrell’s second 3-pointer of the evening put Alabama in front 55-52 with 14:47 left.
However, the team’s momentum quickly evaporated when the Gators scored 8 straight points in less than two minutes to take a 60-55 lead.
Defensive breakdowns led to Florida’s lead growing to double-digits at 73-61 with 8:38 left, taking the air out of the building.
While the Crimson Tide narrowed the deficit to as little as 4 in the final seconds, misses at key moments and defensive lapses led to a failed comeback attempt, sending the seniors home with a loss.
“I thought that we’d get a little better effort than what we got out of these guys tonight,” Oats said.
The story of the game could be found at both rims. Alabama’s defense gave the Gators whatever they wanted in the paint, while the Alabama offense put up a poor showing on the other end.
“Our discipline in transition was awful tonight,” Oats said.
Florida threw down eight dunks on 10 attempts while converting on 12/16 layup attempts. Conversely, the Crimson Tide made just 4 dunks and went 13/27 on layups.
A significant amount of the damage came from Florida starting forward Alex Condon, who had a season-high 27 points and pulled down 10 rebounds.
Florida head coach Todd Golden called Condon’s performance “his best game as a Gator,” while Oats noted that his team “obviously didn’t do a great job on him.”
Rebounding was also a major issue for Alabama, as it was outdone on the glass 50-35 by the Gators.
Oats attributed his team’s poor performance to a lack of energy. Both he and guard Labaron Philon both referenced the team’s lack of “pop” throughout the game.
“Florida had more pop, more energy than us, that’s concerning to me,” Oats said.
The Crimson Tide will look to bounce back in its final regular season game on the road versus No. 1 Auburn on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. CT. The game can be streamed on ESPN.
