With money on the line, the 9th ranked Alabama Crimson Tide fell 83-81 to the Oregon Ducks in the finals of the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas. The Ducks collected the $1.5 million dollars in NIL while the Tide collected second place money. The Tide let a very winnable game get away, with a little help from our friends in stripes. A chase-down block by Jarin Stevenson was called goal tending, and somehow held up on review to help Oregon win the game and the tournament.
The Tide fell victim to careless turnovers and poor shooting, and an inability to hold a late lead. Nonetheless Bama was still in it until the final buzzer, which went off a fraction of a second too soon as Bama made what would have been a game tying hoop.
Coach Nate Oats stuck with the starting five of Mark Sears, Latrell Wrightsell, Jr, LaBaron Philon, Grant Nelson, and Clifford Omruyi. The Tide got off to a good start with Wrightsell hitting an early three pointer and a pair of free throws for a quick 5-0 lead. Sears hit a three, which turned out to be his only of the game, at the 16:20 mark and the Tide seemed to be in control with a 12-6 lead. Aidan Sherrell came in and missed a couple of three pointers and turned the ball over in his only few minutes of playing time. Despite the fact the Mouhamed Dioubate was playing like the MVP of the whole tournament, he was the last man off the bench for Bama.
Philon had a fantastic start to the game after playing poorly in the first two contests in the tournament. A pair of threes, a free throw, and a layup gave the freshman nine quick points. Unforced errors became the theme as the Tide turned the ball over enough for the Ducks to lead 24-23 with 8:38 left in the half. After a 10-2 Oregon run, Bama trailed 28-25. The run was so bad it even forced Oats to call one of his precious timeouts that he loves to hold onto so much. Wrightsell and Aden Holloway threes, and layups by Sears and Philon, helped the Tide answer with a 12-0 run but the Ducks came right back with a 7-0 run of their own to tie things at the half, 39-39.
Bama shot 14-30 for 47% in the half with 2-9 from deep and 3-5 at the free throw line. The Tide had 21 rebounds, 12 assists, one steal, two blocks, and nine big turnovers. Philon had 11 points, three rebounds, and two assists to lead the way. Wrightsell scored 10 and Sears added seven.
Oregon shot 42% from the field, including 22% from three and shot 60% at the line. The Ducks grabbed 15 rebounds, had 13 assists. three steals. two blocks, and only one turnover. Keeshawn Barthelemy and Nate Bittle led the way with 10 points each.
The Tide stayed with the same starters in the second half. Oregon scored right out of the half to take the lead before Bama suffered a huge loss as Wrightsell went down with what could be a season ending injury. We will wait for the MRI before burying the young man, but it didn’t look good. The Ducks went on a 15-5 run to push out to a 10 point lead over the Tide.
Stevenson heated up, hitting three long shots in a row from behind the arc. Holloway nailed one of his own and Nelson and Dioubate scored a pair each to give the Tide a 74-69 lead with 4:14 left in the game. The Ducks started another run, fueled by Bama turnovers, to tie the game 75-75 with 2:09 remaining.
That’s when the controversy started. Nelson was handling the ball at the top of the key and was stripped by Oregon, but Stevenson channelled his inner LeBron James and chased down the play for what appeared to be a beautiful, clean, block. The referee immediately whistled a goal tend to stop the action. With a review underway, former Duke All American, Grant Hill, who was the analyst for the broadcast, almost guaranteed that the call would be overturned because it was clearly a clean block. After several minutes the crew came back with the call standing, and the Tide down two.
Down two with 58 seconds left the Tide had missed threes from Sears and Stevenson. Oregon pushed the lead to 81-75 with 31 seconds left. Holloway drilled a long three pointer to cut the lead to three. Sears stole the inbound pass and was fouled going up, but made only 1-2 at the line. On the miss Dioubate grabbed the rebound and was fouled going up for a shot. Little Mo calmly made both freebies and tied the game at 81-81 with 18 seconds left.
With the shot clock off the Ducks drove the lane and put up a layup that was challenged by three Tide defenders. However the crashing down left no one to block out and an Oregon follow up dunk by Nate Bittle gave the boys in green the lead at 83-81 with 4.4 seconds left. Sears took the ball the length of the court and probably should have put the ball up, but opted for slipping a pass inside to Nelson. By the time Nelson caught the ball, gathered, and went up, the clock expired. After a review the call was upheld, and alas the Tide had missed tying the game by a fraction of a second.
Bama finished 27-64 from the field for 42%, 12-38 for 32% from three, and 15-20 for 75% at the charity stripe. The Tide had 44 rebounds, 2 assists, six steals, four blocks, and 15 turnovers. Philon lead the way with 15 points, seven rebounds, two assists, and a steal. Sears reached double figures with 11 on 3-14 shooting- 1-11 from three- and added four rebounds, five assists, three steals, and three turnovers. Holloway added 11 points, five assists, and five rebounds. Despite missing the majority of the second half Wrightsell was in double figures with 10 points.Nelson had seven points, seven rebounds, and six assists with a variety of slick passes. The big man also had three of the teams turnovers.
Oregon shot 44 % from the field at 29-66 with 5-17 from deep and made 20-25 free throws. The Ducks had 39 rebounds, 19 assists, six steals, three blocks, and eight turnovers. Barthelemy led the team with 22 points off the bench. The hero, Battle, scored 19 and added nine rebounds and three assists.
This game was there for the taking. Don’t turn the ball over- most were unforced errors- and you win the game going away. Sears and Holloway combined to shoot 4-21 from behind the three point line while all other combined to shoot 8-17. Sears at 1-11 was especially off target. Losing Wrightsell was a huge loss for the Tide in the game. Seeing Stevenson finding his range will big for the team. Bama will need more out of the inside duo of Nelson and Omoruyi going forward.
Overall a good week for Bama. Defeating Houston and Rutgers were great wins. The team showed they could win games even without playing great. It would be nice to win and play great, and hopefully that is coming.
The tough schedule continues next week as the Tide travels to Chapel Hill, NC to take on the North Carolina Tar Heels. The game is on December 4th at 6:15 p.m. CT and can be seen on ESPN. Then finally on December 14th the Tide returns home for the first time since November 11th to play Creighton.
Roll Tide
Blue Collar Basketball
