Prayers turn into roars as Bama edges Arkansas in classic

 

 

 

 

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama’s Labaron Philon turned a lecture into rapture, a command to change his ways into a command performance.

Nate Oats turned jeers into rhapsodical cheers reverberating off the hangar-style ceiling of Coleman Coliseum, where, at the end of Wednesday night’s double-overtime jousting with Arkansas, nobody could have heard a 767 at full throttle taking off.

It’s just as well, since the airspace had been cleared for a three-pointer from a three-foot runway in front of the bench off the dusty fingertips of Houston Mallette, a shot that could turn the Tide’s season into one to remember.

Mallette’s sub-orbital three-ball from the depths of the corner with 51 seconds left gave Alabama what proved to be the winning points in a 117-115 victory that left the coliseum rollicking with excitement. That the No. 25 Tide had twice trailed an excellent basketball team by 14 points and rallied with a brief but well-timed defensive clasp and, in a rarity, better low-post production than from outside could be a sign it is in for a cheery postseason, especially if it gets fully healthy.

The No. 17 Razorbacks (19-7, 9-4 SEC) had given no sign one of the most enthralling games ever played in the coliseum was taking form, as they led by double digits for most of the game, even with 11:55 to go, and had made Alabama appear unworthy of an NIT bid or even an invitation to join a church league.

The old arena was as quiet as a prayer service, perhaps because prayers were going up when the Tide went down by 14 points in both halves to an Arkansas team that seemed more athletic, downright hallucinatory off the dribble and maybe even better coached by Hall of Famer John Calipari, who is on the cusp of becoming only the sixth human in NCAA Division I history to reach 900 wins.

Calipari’s team — and in particular freshman guard Darius Acuff, who scored 49 points, never came out of the game and did everything but make a shot between his legs — pulled down the Alabama players’ shorts and beat their hind quarters crimson. Meanwhile, Oats was assailed with boos from the crowd of 13,000 for refusing to call a time out or even offer some bandages and at least some Neosporin.

But as it turns out, the Tide coach was being wily. He could foresee the shorthanded Razorbacks eventually collapsing and didn’t want to do anything to forestall the gutting he felt would surely come.

 

The final spear

 

Mallette — who had taken and missed only one shot in regulation — threw the final spear with Alabama holding a precarious 114-113 lead. As Philon brought the ball upcourt, he knew there was plenty of time for the unexpected to happen and that Oats had already told him he needn’t do any cartwheels, spin the ball off his nose or turn into smoke to go between defenders, although he is the team’s leading scorer, the SEC’s No. 2 scorer and a certain first-round NBA Draft choice this summer.

Philon, the former Baker High School star who had been challenged by Oats before the game to supply the Tide with more of the unglamorous tools of winning, drew two Arkansas defenders to him and passed to Mallette, who, as calmly and slowly as if he was trimming his beard, took meticulous aim, his right arm staying cocked up in the air as his shot traced a ballistic path to the basket while the fans swallowed their tongues. When the net shivered, Mallette was probably the calmest person in the building, which was shaking at its foundation.

The next calmest might have been Philon, who finished with 35 points, 7 assists, just 2 turnovers in 41 minutes and personally fouled out more than half of the Razorbacks’ starting five with his incessant driving.

Once he passed to Mallette, Philon headed down the floor, confident the shot was going down.

“I already knew once I saw two guys still on the ball, once he got the ball in his hands, I knew he was going to make it,” Philon said.

Oats, who must have felt relief to again be considered by the fans as one of the game’s top coaches in the midst of the turnaround, could feel satisfaction in his handling of Philon while kicking himself for not getting more shots for Mallette, who made a three-pointer in each of the overtime periods.

“Everybody knows he can really shoot,” Oats said of Mallette, who made nearly 50% of his threes in offseason practices and games. “We have to do a better job getting him more shots. Everybody believes in him. When you got that open three right there in front of the bench, the left corner, I don’t think anybody on our team wasn’t fully confident that thing was hitting the bottom of the net.”

 

The Baron of Ball

 

Philon vindicated himself to his coach, who had warned him not to engage in a night of personal one-upmanship with Acuff, the SEC’s leading scorer who was ranked as the nation’s No. 1 point guard in the 2025 class by 247 Sports and is on pace to be the first player to lead the SEC in scoring and assists in league games.

Alabama tried almost every starter and even a reserve or two against Acuff and he still made them look invisible.

“I told Labaron before the game that we don’t have to outscore this kid, we need to win the game,” Oats said. “You need to be a better leader, a better teammate, better defensively, better ball movement, all that. I thought he was pretty good at a lot of that tonight. Acuff won the scoring deal, we got the win.”

It was ironic that in being unselfish, Philon still scored 35 points on 11-of-21 shooting.

“I think coach Oats did a great job of keeping me composed and just worried about winning the game,” Philon said. “That was mainly my focus, not trying to press and not trying to outscore the other guards, just will your team to a win. I think those last 15 minutes, I really did that. I tried to get guys open, build their confidence and make the right play at the end of the game.”

Philon had just two turnovers in 41 minutes, drew 10 fouls, dispatched three Razorbacks starters to the bench and made 10 of 13 free throws.

“Some of these other games when we played other elite guards, he’s come out and tried to do too much and ended up with two turnovers before we even get the first media timeout,” Oats said. “We addressed that with him. To only have two turnovers and play over 40 minutes — pretty good. And look, man, he drew 10 fouls. The fact that they had to play two guys that never played at the end of the game was in large part due to Labaron doing a really good job driving the ball.”

Calipari, whose team was hampered by the foul outs and injuries, said his defense caved in with Philon digging tunnels inside his defense.

“You have a guy we keep saying, ‘He likes going left’ and he kept going left and he kept going left and they kept calling fouls and he kept going left,” Calipari said. “Fouling guys out, that’s going to hurt this team. But give Alabama credit — they beat us. They deserve to win the game. … We make more threes than they made, we make more field goals than they made, we only have seven turnovers and you get beat.”

Oats said Philon found a way to win despite the Tide’s unusually muted three-point shooting. Instead, Philon often rolled in the lane to 6-11 center Aiden Sherrell, who had 26 points and 13 rebounds and led a rare win in the paint (58-46) after Alabama made just 10 of 29 threes in 83 possessions. It finished 16 of 22 layups and is now 36-0 under Oats when scoring 100 points.

“Everybody’s worried about taking our three away, which they should be with the way we play,” Oats said. “We ended up outscoring them in the paint by 12. I thought Baron did a good job of finding Sherrell on the roll, getting to the paint himself, drawing fouls. We are able to adjust to teams who want to take away the three and I think Baron was right at the top of that.”

 

The Tide is rising

 

Those who didn’t use their tickets — and there were some empty seats — are regretting it after a game with 13 ties and nine lead changes.

When Alabama continued to wobble early in the second half, Oats did call a time out to steady his players; Philon said he felt like he was in an NBA pre-combine game, which favored the deeper Tide.

“Conditioning wise, I would say it definitely felt like that, just that pace, that level of basketball,” he said. “Coach told us those guys are going to get tired, they didn’t really have a deep rotation. We knew they weren’t going to sustain that. … I just told my guys don’t break, you know we can change this around in a hurry. Once we locked in and just got it all together, we started pushing back and kept chopping it down.”

Alabama uncorked the crowd with a 23-6 run while Acuff went 7:23 without a basket as the Tide turned a 75-62 deficit into an 85-81 lead by putting smaller guards on pick-and-rolls to create easier defensive switches.

“We were able to kind of crack them there in the middle of the second half and then it was dogfight from there,” Oats said.

But Acuff — who showed no signs of being in a walking boot two days before — shrugged off his drought on a three-pointer with 12 seconds left in regulation to tie it 95-95 and force overtime.

Calipari was worried Acuff might miss the game.

“Are you nuts?” Acuff replied.

Some might have thought Oats was when he kept trying to convince his players Arkansas would crumble, even with a 14-point lead. By the beginning of the second overtime, his prescience was staggering.

“I said they’re running out of guys and they’re running out of steam,” Oats told them.

But the Tide is not. With everything it has endured, Alabama (19-7, 9-4 SEC) has won five straight games for the first time this season. It is 3-0 since a judge ruled Charles Bediako could no longer play. It has won despite 12 different starting lineups.

“I think we’re going to be OK,” Oats said, and the character shown in Wednesday night’s SEC classic could be a large reason why.