It wasn’t pretty, but the Alabama men’s basketball team outlasted West Georgia in the Crimson Tide’s only exhibition game of the 2013-14 season Monday night.
Coach Anthony Grant said at times he couldn’t recognize the players on the court.
“I thought we had a lot of guys play out of character today,” Grant said. “[It was the] first game in front of a crowd for some of our guys. We had some veterans that didn’t play like veterans today.”
Alabama downed the Wolves 65-64 in overtime, but the Crimson Tide players had expected to beat West Georgia by a significantly larger margin.
“I told these guys that’s not the team that we’ve seen in practice, in terms of the way we’ve played for the last several weeks,” Grant said. “But I think it was hopefully a wake-up call for some guys in terms of the physicality that they’re going to have to be able to play with to have success.”
Alabama trailed 48-40 in the second half, and senior guard Trevor Releford stepped in and spoke to his teammates during a timeout.
“I just told the team that we’re not losing this game, we’ve got to come together and just figure it out and try to get this win,” Releford said. “A lot of the guys on the team stepped up.”
It was Releford that fueled the offensive fire for Alabama in the second half and overtime. He led all scorers with 27 points.
“He stepped up and made big plays,” junior guard Rodney Cooper said. “We just tried to feed off him.”
Junior forward Nick Jacobs was the only other Alabama player to post double-digit points with 12. He also pulled down nine rebounds.
The rest of the Crimson Tide players were cold on the offensive end.
It was Alabama’s ability to block shots and the Wolves’ inability to knock down free throws that kept the game close.
Freshman forward Jimmy Taylor only scored two points, but his contribution on defense was what filled up the stat sheet. Taylor blocked seven shots and recorded six defensive rebounds in his first appearance in Coleman Coliseum.
“I thought Jimmy went in there and really affected the game,” Grant said. “He had seven blocked shots. I thought his energy was really good. I thought he ran the floor well for a freshman. I was really happy with the way he responded to the opportunities he got.”
West Georgia attempted 30 more shots (78-48) than Alabama and out-rebounded the Crimson Tide 22-6 on the offensive end. Alabama also committed 15 turnovers.
Grant said his team needs to look in the mirror to see how it’s capable of playing. Monday night was not it.
“I think we’re a lot better [than how we played],” Grant said. “Hopefully that’s the worst we can play.”
Alabama will travel to Dallas, Texas, on Nov. 8 to begin its regular season schedule. The Crimson Tide will face the Oklahoma Sooners at 4 p.m. CT on FSN Southwest.
