After Alabama men’s basketball struggled to contain Kansas State’s rebounding, which was ranked 298th in the country, coach Nate Oats said after the game on Saturday night that the Crimson Tide would have to give a better effort on the glass to compete with LSU. The Tigers were ranked 22nd in rebounding coming into Wednesday night’s matchup with Alabama.

Oats was correct, as Alabama (12-8, 4-3) lost the rebounding battle 49-31 in a 90-76 loss to the Tigers. The Crimson Tide’s 31 rebounds tied for its lowest of the season.

In the 14-point loss, Alabama allowed 20 points off of LSU’s offensive rebounds while the Crimson Tide scored just five. Besides junior forward Herbert Jones and junior guard John Petty Jr., none of the other six players recorded more than three rebounds.

“They destroyed us on the boards,” Oats said. “That’s two games in a row now where we just can’t rebound the ball. It just caused major problems.”

Even though the team was down by 18 at halftime, the Crimson Tide cut the lead to single digits after freshman guard Jaylen Forbes made a 3-pointer with 13:14 remaining. After the deficit was cut to nine once again with less than 10 minutes left, LSU had an answer for every made shot by Alabama, as the Tigers made five straight shots in a span just over two minutes.

The Crimson Tide then made just one of its next 11 shots and could not get any closer.

Freshman guard Jaden Shackelford led Alabama by scoring 21 points while shooting 5 of 14 from beyond the arc. Junior forward Alex Reese scored 17 points while, sophomore guard Kira Lewis Jr. added 13 points with eight assists.

Petty, who had just four points in 32 minutes, came off the bench for the first time this season.

“We need to get our leaders to lead,” Oats said. “We haven’t been practicing hard enough in my opinion. So we tried to make a statement. It backfired.”

Alabama will be back in Coleman Coliseum to face Arkansas (15-4, 3-3) on Saturday night at 5 p.m. The Crimson Tide has lost its past five meetings to the Razorbacks with the last win coming in 2014.