Alabama guard Labaron Philon and Tide coach Nate Oats try to figure out how to attack Tennessee’s defense Saturday night in Tuscaloosa. Philon scored 26 points but Alabama lost 79-73. (UA Athletics)
Alabama center Charles Bediako slams home one of four dunks Saturday night in his first game with the Tide in three years. He was granted a temporary restraining order by a Tuscaloosa judge to play against Tennessee and has a hearing Tuesday to see about having an injunction granted against the NCAA to restore his full eligibility. (UA Athletics)
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama coach Nate Oats is not one to make excuses, although he could have.
He could have said a 79-73 loss to Tennessee Saturday night would have been averted if the injured Aden Holloway and Amari Allen — who average 29 points per game combined — had played.
He could have said the No. 17-ranked Crimson Tide nearly won despite getting few uncontested shots, despite the Volunteers’ long wingspan that made Alabama feel as if it was operating in a shoebox, maybe even with one shoe missing, despite never getting the fast break going, despite never unfurling its chief weapon — the three-pointer — well enough to make UT scream for mercy.
“We lost,” Oats flatly said after the Tide’s second straight home defeat. “We put five really good players out there just like Tennessee did and we didn’t have enough tonight.”
It started so well, with a sonorous Coleman Coliseum crowd of 13,474 coming inside out of the rain to roar its approval of Alabama going inside to build a 10-point first-half lead. But it ended with the fans trying to beat each other to the exits.
“We didn’t give them a good enough show like we should have,” Oats said.
The Tide (13-6, 3-3 SEC) led 39-36 at halftime, mainly on the strength of what has been a weakness — a 26-14 advantage in paint points.
“That three-point lead felt like it should have been a lot bigger,” Oats said.
But the Vols reversed that quickly, took the lead 1½ minutes into the second half and held it for all but 1½ minutes the rest of the way.
“We took care of a few things on the defensive end the first half and all of a sudden it disappeared immediately in the second half,” Oats said.
In the second half, Tennessee never let Alabama wrest away the momentum, responding to a Tide score with one of its own nine of 12 times.
Alabama didn’t lose its poise; the Vols had a little more. Instead, that ugly word Oats has often used to pan this team — toughness — stuck its head out of the ground once again and tripped the Tide in its fifth straight loss to UT (13-6, 3-3).
“They made good adjustments in the second half,” Oats said. “They went to switching on ball screens after we had some success against other coverages in the first half. We’ve been one of the better teams in the league these last two or three years and for whatever reason we haven’t had as much success with them and it has a lot to do with the way they guard — they’re tough, physical and they make it hard and they take away your threes. They emphasize toughness and physicality and we’ve got to do a better job countering that.”
Two weeks ago, after a similarly wrenching 92-88 home loss to Texas, Oats paddled his team publicly. The lowlights? “Losing doesn’t bother them enough yet” and “We gotta get some players out there that got some pride” and “We’re not good enough right now to win any big games.”
They then responded with two road wins at Mississippi State and Oklahoma, only to lose at home again Saturday night.
Oats didn’t issue another harangue afterward but Mobile’s Labaron Philon, Alabama’s leading scorer who finished with 26 points and 7 assists (the rest of the team had two), said he and his teammates still have work to do to make their coach happy.
“A hard, gritty game like that at home, taking that loss is always going to sting,” he said. “Coach has been trying to tell us we’ve got to have pride on both ends of the floor and play physical and we really didn’t do that tonight and they took advantage of it.”
Tennessee coach Rick Barnes, whose defenses have always been difficult to unlock, figured out what to do.
“We started switching and we just kept trying to get our post guys to back up as much as we could,” he said. “They’re a really difficult team to guard.”
Philon conceded the Vols forced him to be nearly perfect.
“It was just blowing up screens, trying to blitz me on ball screens, trying to get it out of my hands and just make me make the right decision every time and they did a good job at that,” he said.
UT also put up an umbrella from three-point range; the Tide had averaged making 12 per game — which led the SEC and was No. 2 nationally — but finished 6 of 26.
“They’re so good, you get out there like we were and they could go by you and they were doing that early,” Barnes said. “If they were gonna make a bunch of threes, we wanted it to be a high-volume number. We also know that they can get it going at any time and we just didn’t want to give them anything easy. It’s a very hard team to guard.”
Perhaps the best thing to happen to Alabama was the return of 7-foot center Charles (Angry Chuck) Bediako, who last played with the Tide three years ago, turned pro, sued the NCAA, then won a temporary restraining order to restore his eligibility from a local judge who also happens to be a UA booster.
Bediako came off the bench to a standing ovation early, made four dunks and finished with 13 points but only three rebounds.
“For a guy that’s only been here a few days to fit in with the team, he was good,” Oats said. “He’s got to get a few more rebounds for us. He’s going to help us moving forward.”
Bediako and the Tide moved forward after a week of hearing that they are villainous and intent at winning at all costs for letting a professional play college basketball, as if the rest of the sport is as pure as a sterile thermometer. Spare the fake outrage. Thousands of college players are paid, which makes them professionals. If they were all removed, the games wouldn’t be worth watching.
Is Alabama going to be worth watching come March? If Bediako is granted eligibility for the rest of the season, he’ll bolster the low post. If the Tide gets fully healthy, only the phonies who pretend this is amateur basketball will have excuses.
