Alabama Basketball Offense Severely Hamstrung in Ole Miss Loss

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— There are many reasons why No. 4 Alabama lost to Ole Miss 74-64 on Tuesday night, marking the Crimson Tide's first home defeat of the season and first hiccup of the vitally important SEC schedule.

One of the country's top-scoring offenses, a program which places a premium on offensive efficiency, producing an output below 70 points when it is otherwise accustomed to quite a bit more was one of the preeminent factors.

"Ole Miss, they did a great job of just guarding. They were very disciplined," a dejected Aden Holloway said. Holloway was Alabama's leading scorer in the game with 15 points and one of only two players in white jerseys in double figures. "Not one of our better nights," forward Jarin Stevenson said.

The victory was the first in program history for the No. 21 Rebels (15-2, 4-0 SEC) against a top five opponent on the road. Ole Miss, now tied with Auburn at the top of the league standings, stifled Alabama from the three-point line and controlled the pace of play; the Crimson Tide was a mere 5-for-20 beyond the arc.

"That was definitely a focal point," Rebels head coach Chris Beard said. "This is a team [Alabama] that averages 92 points a game in SEC play... You start by saying 'This game is probably not gonna be our way if it's in the 90s or the 100s.' So we've gotta control the tempo. You do that by taking care of the basketball, by shot selection, by build[ing] a wall on defense. More than anything, though, you do it by intelligent players that understand what we're trying to get done tonight."

Alabama coach Nate Oats chalked up the night's offensive struggles to turnovers (of which his team had 21) and poor rebounding, the latter issue being fairly uncharacteristic of this season's team, certainly nowhere anywhere in the neighborhood of the kind of problems turning the basketball over has caused.

"Maybe the most disappointing thing on the night in my opinion was our lack of effort on the offensive glass," Oats said. "We lost this game on the offensive end. We lost the game with our turnovers, our lack of effort on the offensive glass, guys that we count on to go get offensive rebounds came up with nothing for us tonight." He added the ironic twist that the team's blue-collar points were at a season low. The irony was present as a result of the game being accompanied by a Blue Collar Night promotion, with criteria for scoring such plays being displayed to spectators prior to tipoff. "You have to deserve to win, and we didn't deserve to win this game," he said.

In the Crimson Tide head coach's view, concurrently with his team's woes from range (and the charity stripe) and issues crashing the boards as well as taking care of the ball, one squad showed up and the other did not.

"It's disgusting, to be honest with you," Oats said. "It starts with me... I felt like we lost because they came ready to play. They brought energy. They brought effort. We did not. That's a frustrating way to lose."

On nights where not a lot goes right, the first five can sometimes be the difference between staying in a game and faltering. Alabama's starters flatly failed to produce. Among those five, only superstar point guard Mark Sears got into double figures, but even so could not continue his stretch of better performances during recent games. Fellow guard Labaron Philon only scored a single point on a free throw 93 seconds into the game and was otherwise 0-for-8 from the field. This did not deter his teammates from standing behind him.

"Every single person on this team is aware that Labaron is like that," Holloway said, a public display of seemingly unflinching confidence in his teammate. "We believe in him a thousand percent." Oats was more critical of the freshman, suggesting Philon would be inclined to turn up the aggression to get himself going and make blue-collar plays.

Despite being competitive and clearly able to play with Ole Miss even as the Rebels announce themselves as one of the more defensively adept teams in the land, Alabama's abysmal offensive marks did it in: the 21 turnovers, four offensive rebounds and 19 makes in 26 tries from the free-throw line. The Crimson Tide also failed to reach what could be deemed a magic number when facing Beard's teams. Ole Miss is 15-2 this season, and both losses came when allowing more than 70 points, which only one other opponent has done against the Rebels this season.

Alabama (14-3, 3-1 SEC), which frequently makes waves for the potency of its offense, could only muster 64 points, unable to overcome the other largely self-imposed difficulties with energy and beyond to snag what would have been a critical victory in the conference landscape.

See Also:

No. 5 Alabama Upset at Home by No. 21 Ole Miss To Drop First SEC Game