Alabama men’s basketball hit the road to take on the Kentucky Wildcats Saturday. The Tide came out blazing to start the game, giving hope to the Tide loyal. However, after the first 10 minutes of the game, Alabama returned to typical Alabama basketball. Blowing double-digit leads is nothing new for the Tide, but something about having the initial hope makes the cut deeper. Alabama, for whatever reason, has zero fear of shooting three-pointers. Fortunately, though, it was working for a while. Alabama fans everywhere were convinced that maybe this would be the end of bottomed-out three-point shooting percentages. Jokes on you.
Let me explain “Typical Alabama basketball”
Bipolar. A roller coaster. They might. They might not. This basketball team has the ability to either knock off three of the Final Four teams from last year, or the ability to lose to a team that hasn’t won in the SEC all season. It’s not because the talent isn’t there. The Tide has a slew of four and five stars: Darius Miles, JD Davison, Juwan Gary, Jaden Shackelford, Charles Bediako, and Jahvon Quinerly, respectively. Quinerly and Davison are the two five-star prospects coming out of high school, along with McDonald’s All-American honors for each of them. Talent isn’t the problem in Tuscaloosa. It may just be my personal opinion here, but you can’t help but feel like this team doesn’t care. You want them to, and for a moment they look like they might, then it falls apart.
When all else fails, just shoot the three.
Not to downplay Kentucky in the slightest, they’re 22-5. Not to mention, they’re the number four team in the nation. The noteworthy part of this is that Alabama was playing good basketball. They were holding their own against one of the best in college basketball. So what happened? The Tide went 14-of-40 on threes, 12-of-23 belonging to Shackelford and Ellis. The Tide’s defensive efforts were a lack of existence and it ended up costing them. Head Coach Nate Oats agreed,
“We kept telling them in that hot start that our defense wasn’t gonna be good enough to win the game, and that’s what ended up happening… didn’t get stops early in the game when we were hot. We should have been up 20 if we had guarded like we’re supposed to. They played the whole game without a point guard. We only turned them over seven times. We didn’t play hard enough on the ball.”
Coach Oats to 247 Sports
After a Darius Miles’ flagrant 1 foul just before halftime, and the review that took forever, Alabama’s momentum went out the window. What I can say that didn’t help the Tide’s fight was the foul distribution. Alabama ended the game with 16 personal fouls to Kentucky’s 7. The Calipari effect? Maybe. Although we’re all aware that SEC officiating has been a nightmare to watch this season, can’t really argue fouls when the team has a look on their face that they’re ready to go home.
Oats on the loss…
“Real disappointing loss. We wasted a good shooting night out of Shack and Keon. Those two guys combined to go 12-of-23 from three, and we kind of wasted it.”
And on his players’ effort issues…
“Everybody’s responsible for their own personal effort. For whatever reason this year, we haven’t been able to get them to give us the effort we need to win big games every time out. We’ve lost multiple games because of an effort deal, which is frustrating as a coach. What do I need to do better to get the messaging through to them? How do we motivate them better to play hard? Some of it is personal pride, too. We were losing some games – and I’m not necessarily saying today. They’ve got really good players here at Kentucky. It’s Kentucky.”
The Tide will take on Vanderbilt Tuesday on the road. We’ll see if they’ll find their heart and will to win before then.
