The Alabama Crimson Tide’s basketball team came into their matchup on Saturday ranked 10th nationally and undefeated in the SEC. Meanwhile, the Missouri Tigers came into the game ranked 18th, and are the closest team behind Alabama in the conference race.
Alabama head coach Nate Oats mentioned before the game, “We have got to get back to playing better on the offensive end.” However, the Tide ultimately came out looking stiff during the first half on offense.
With Missouri only three games behind the Tide, this game was a big one. Missouri started the game off hot and carried their dominance into the beginning of the second half.
However, after the Tigers gained a 20-point lead with under seven minutes left in the game, they started to let Alabama creep back into the game. The Tide completely shut down the Tiger’s offense and went on a 21-2 run to bring the score within one point with just a little over a minute left in the game.
It looked like Bama was going to be able to complete the comeback, but Missouri’s defense tightened up in the end and kept the score 66-65 for over a minute at the end of the game before extending their lead to three with only five seconds left.
In Oats’ opening statements to the media after the game, he started off by saying, “First SEC loss, and obviously our guys are disappointed and I’m disappointed. We gave ourselves a chance there at the end to win it, but I don’t think we played like we needed to in the first half. Somehow we have got to get these guys ready to go a little better.”
Herb Jones is without a doubt the senior leader of the Tide, and rightfully so. Jones has been the driving force behind the team’s success this season, but on Saturday he only managed to get seven points and grab five boards.
The senior had the ball in his hands twice in the last seven seconds with an opportunity to secure the lead, but both layup attempts were unsuccessful, including the last one which was a questionable no-call and could have changed the 68-65 outcome of the game that favored Missouri.
On what he saw on the final Jones layup attempt, Oats remarked, “I haven’t seen the film, so I don’t want to say. From what I saw I thought he landed on his back, but as a coach you want every foul to go your way.”
He later added, “I haven’t seen it [on replay] so I don’t want to say for sure. Our refs in the SEC are pretty good. If he missed it, he missed it, but we have to do a better job of not putting them in a spot where the game is in their hands in the last 10 seconds of the game.”
Three-point shooting woes for the Tide were a surprising part of the problem in this game, and while they shot 36% from deep, it felt like Alabama was missing left and right in this game. With the percentage being what it was, it doesn’t seem terrible on paper, but fans are used to seeing the Tide hit much more when the game is on the line. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case against the Tigers.
Jaden Shackelford had 15 points for Bama in this matchup along with four rebounds as the Tide’s leading scorer. Keon Ellis and Jahvon Quinerly were both tied for second on the team for points with 12 each. Alex Reese went only 1-5 from downtown.
Alabama is still up two games in the race for the SEC, with just seven games left on the schedule. It is very likely that the Tide will still be able to grab the regular season conference championship for this year — a feat which Alabama basketball has not accomplished in 19 years.
If Bama continues to be efficient on offense and fight like they did at the end of this game, the ball will continue to roll their way. With their first loss in conference play coming in February, this is one of Alabama’s best seasons in program history thus far.
Oats said he had to give his players credit after the game for rallying from behind and bringing the score within one. “We were down 22 [points] with 13 minutes left in the game and had multiple opportunities to take the lead in the last minute and a half. I couldn’t have asked for much better effort in the last 13 minutes of the game.”
Hayden Crigler is a contributing college football writer for Yellowhammer News. You can contact him through email: hayden@new-yhn.local or on Twitter: @hayden_crigler.
