Alabama men’s basketball never had a safe lead in its 76-68 loss at home to Vanderbilt. When the Crimson Tide pulled away, the Commodores came back. Then Vanderbilt took a lead and never gave it up.
“Give Vanderbilt credit. Obviously they played extremely well today,” Alabama coach Anthony Grant said. “Our defense today was not good enough to win the game today, and I thought that was the difference.”
Alabama out-rebounded Vanderbilt 38-30. In the second half, the Commodores grabbed 18 rebounds to the Crimson Tide’s 13. Freshman Riley Norris led Alabama with eight rebounds. He put up five points before fouling out with 1:45 left to play.
At the half, Alabama led 33-32 after a foul by Norris and a technical by sophomore Michael Kessens put Vanderbilt on the line for four shots, all of which were made.
“The official said that Mike took the ball and that he put it in the guy’s face or something,” Grant said. “I don’t really know exactly what happened. I’ll have to watch it on film.”
Redshirt junior Retin Obasohan and senior Rodney Cooper led the Crimson Tide with seven points apiece at the intermission. Obasohan finished with 10 points in his first game back after missing two games due to a hand infection. After the game, he said his hand felt alright.
Senior guard and captain Levi Randolph went 26 minutes without scoring before sinking a three-pointer to give Alabama a 41-38 lead with 13:36 remaining. He finished the game with seven rebounds and a team-leading 15 points.
“Like coach said, we didn’t have the energy or the defensive effort that we needed throughout the whole game,” Randolph said.
Sophomore Shannon Hale put up 10 points and six rebounds in the loss. He was the only other Alabama player with double-digit points.
Alabama shot 53.8 percent from the 3-point line in the second, putting up 21 of its 35 second-half points on Vanderbilt from beyond the arc.
“I’m glad it was over because I felt like Alabama was going to make every single three that they shot, and it was incredible, that shooting performance by them, I thought was incredible, but I think our ability to get the ball inside and get to the foul line was a huge difference for us,” Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings said.
Vanderbilt went 28-35 from the line. The Commodores made 17-of-19 free throws in the second half alone. Alabama shot 11-17 from the line for the whole game.
“Thirty-five free throws is a lot, especially for a team like Vanderbilt that is more of a jump shooting team, to come into our building and get 35 free throws – again give them credit,” Grant said. “They were able to get what they wanted from an offensive standpoint. They were able to stay in a rhythm. We couldn’t get them out of rhythm whether it was the press, half-court, man-to-man, zone, they were able to find a rhythm. We knew we had to be really good from a defensive standpoint, and we weren’t up to the task today.”
Alabama (15-10, 5-7 SEC) heads to Auburn Tuesday for an 8 p.m. tip-off on ESPNU.
