Opening statement…
“It’s another game after a loss where I felt our guys came ready to play. Hopefully, we don’t have too many more of those if any, after losses that is. But I do feel like our guys kept themselves mentally ready to go after we lost to Tennessee. We came out with gates, the starting group got us off to a great start and pushed the lead out. I was just informed Brandon (Miller) is the third freshman in Alabama history to score 500 points and get there faster than James “Hollywood” Robinson and Collin Sexton and are two pretty good players. So we had some history made tonight. We had an issue with our turnovers in Tennessee. Jahvon (Quinerly) had six assists and three turnovers, other than him with three no we had more than one each. Jaden Bradley had seven assists and no turnovers. Rylan Griffen and four assists and no turnovers. I’m happy with the way we moved the ball and took care of it. Obviously helps to make shots to get assists, but 14 of our 20 made fools in the first half of were assisted. The ball was moving, the defense was good, rebounding – we talked a lot about getting our rebounding shored up and thought we did a good job of that. Second chance points was 20-6. We did a much better job in that area as well, so its a good win to get us going after the loss to Tennessee.”
Benny’s Breakdown: Alabama could do no wrong on Saturday and did it ever need a performance like that after its grueling loss to Tennessee. How dominant were they you ask? Well, the entire starting five of Mark Sears, Jaden Bradley, Brandon Miller, Noah Clowney and Charles Bediako finished plus-30 in the win, highlighting the unit’s impact on both ends of the floor. The Crimson Tide also dominated in points in the paint, second-chance points, fastbreak points and bench points, tallying a double-digit margin in four of those five stats.
On Mark Sears’ hot-shooting night…
“We wanted to get him going he’s been good for us all year. He scored 17 points in 19 minutes and 17 points on 10 shots, he was really efficient. He hit that first 3-pointer and we ran a play for him to try and get him going again, it’s always nice when it works out when you’re trying to get a guy going and you get him going. I thought he had some good practices and he's worked really hard. He's in the gym, working on his game, so I was happy for him. We need him to be good for us. We need some other scoring options. Teams do a good job of taking Brandon, and he was able to get going tonight too, but it’s nice to have Sears get back to making some shots as well.”
Benny’s Breakdown: Alongside Brandon Miller, Mark Sears has become the perfect sidekick to the freshman phenom. That’s why when he scored just two points and tallied three turnovers against Tennessee, the offense seemed to sputter to a halt. What makes Alabama so dynamic on offense returned on Saturday as Sears’ fast start allowed Miller to get wide-open looks from deep which helped him find a rhythm early on Saturday. Miller and Sears’ scoring helped Alabama tally its fifth win where it scored 100 points or more this season.
On Brandon Miller scoring 500 points in his Alabama career…
“That’s why he’s the fastest freshman in Alabama history to get to 500 points because he’s consistently there every night. I mean even when teams try to take him out he finds ways. We can get some buckets in transition, he gets the offensive boards, he gets buckets and gets fouled. His free-throw percentage is high. He was 4-for-4 tonight and he has all kind of different ways to score and you can try to take him out. You can do a really good job on him and he still ends up with 14, 15, 16 on a great defensive night by the opponent who is still finding ways to average at least 15 points on a regular basis it seems.”
Benny’s Breakdown: What can’t Brandon Miller do? It’s a question opposing teams are struggling to find an answer to this season. While his 18.7 points per game is impressive, Miller has only recorded one game where he’s scored 10 points or less this season. That came against then-No. 1 Houston on the road, a game Alabama wound up winning thanks to scoring outbursts by Noah Clowney and Sears. Also for Miller to put his name in the same sentence as Collin Sexton and James “Hollywood” Robinson shows how special of a player he is and how lucky an NBA team is going to be when he’s drafted this summer.
On another home sellout at Coleman Coliseum…
"It's great to have sellouts. It's great for our guys. It shows them that the community supports them. We have a great fan base that wants to see them succeed. If we take care of business here over the next three weeks, hopefully, we’re playing in Birmingham in the NCAA tournament, and we can get as big of a pro-Alabama as we can possibly get up there. It’s great for our guys and it shows the level we’ve gotten the program to, because in my first year here we didn’t get many sellouts, especially against sub-.500 teams. It’s great that we’re selling those out now.”
Benny’s Breakdown: It’s hard to not think of that Field of Dreams scene when Kevin Costner’s character, Ray Kinsella, hears “If you build it, they will come.” Longtime Alabama fans know just how difficult it was to build this Alabama program into what it has become. While Oats recently wanted to give credit to Avery Johnson for the talent his first team had when he took over in 2019, no one could have predicted this is where Alabama would be just four years later. Kudos to Oats who put the Crimson Tide on the map as a “basketball school.” An impressive feat in itself given the fact that the football team practices right next door.
“It’s another game after a loss where I felt our guys came ready to play. Hopefully, we don’t have too many more of those if any, after losses that is. But I do feel like our guys kept themselves mentally ready to go after we lost to Tennessee. We came out with gates, the starting group got us off to a great start and pushed the lead out. I was just informed Brandon (Miller) is the third freshman in Alabama history to score 500 points and get there faster than James “Hollywood” Robinson and Collin Sexton and are two pretty good players. So we had some history made tonight. We had an issue with our turnovers in Tennessee. Jahvon (Quinerly) had six assists and three turnovers, other than him with three no we had more than one each. Jaden Bradley had seven assists and no turnovers. Rylan Griffen and four assists and no turnovers. I’m happy with the way we moved the ball and took care of it. Obviously helps to make shots to get assists, but 14 of our 20 made fools in the first half of were assisted. The ball was moving, the defense was good, rebounding – we talked a lot about getting our rebounding shored up and thought we did a good job of that. Second chance points was 20-6. We did a much better job in that area as well, so its a good win to get us going after the loss to Tennessee.”
Benny’s Breakdown: Alabama could do no wrong on Saturday and did it ever need a performance like that after its grueling loss to Tennessee. How dominant were they you ask? Well, the entire starting five of Mark Sears, Jaden Bradley, Brandon Miller, Noah Clowney and Charles Bediako finished plus-30 in the win, highlighting the unit’s impact on both ends of the floor. The Crimson Tide also dominated in points in the paint, second-chance points, fastbreak points and bench points, tallying a double-digit margin in four of those five stats.
On Mark Sears’ hot-shooting night…
“We wanted to get him going he’s been good for us all year. He scored 17 points in 19 minutes and 17 points on 10 shots, he was really efficient. He hit that first 3-pointer and we ran a play for him to try and get him going again, it’s always nice when it works out when you’re trying to get a guy going and you get him going. I thought he had some good practices and he's worked really hard. He's in the gym, working on his game, so I was happy for him. We need him to be good for us. We need some other scoring options. Teams do a good job of taking Brandon, and he was able to get going tonight too, but it’s nice to have Sears get back to making some shots as well.”
Benny’s Breakdown: Alongside Brandon Miller, Mark Sears has become the perfect sidekick to the freshman phenom. That’s why when he scored just two points and tallied three turnovers against Tennessee, the offense seemed to sputter to a halt. What makes Alabama so dynamic on offense returned on Saturday as Sears’ fast start allowed Miller to get wide-open looks from deep which helped him find a rhythm early on Saturday. Miller and Sears’ scoring helped Alabama tally its fifth win where it scored 100 points or more this season.
On Brandon Miller scoring 500 points in his Alabama career…
“That’s why he’s the fastest freshman in Alabama history to get to 500 points because he’s consistently there every night. I mean even when teams try to take him out he finds ways. We can get some buckets in transition, he gets the offensive boards, he gets buckets and gets fouled. His free-throw percentage is high. He was 4-for-4 tonight and he has all kind of different ways to score and you can try to take him out. You can do a really good job on him and he still ends up with 14, 15, 16 on a great defensive night by the opponent who is still finding ways to average at least 15 points on a regular basis it seems.”
Benny’s Breakdown: What can’t Brandon Miller do? It’s a question opposing teams are struggling to find an answer to this season. While his 18.7 points per game is impressive, Miller has only recorded one game where he’s scored 10 points or less this season. That came against then-No. 1 Houston on the road, a game Alabama wound up winning thanks to scoring outbursts by Noah Clowney and Sears. Also for Miller to put his name in the same sentence as Collin Sexton and James “Hollywood” Robinson shows how special of a player he is and how lucky an NBA team is going to be when he’s drafted this summer.
On another home sellout at Coleman Coliseum…
"It's great to have sellouts. It's great for our guys. It shows them that the community supports them. We have a great fan base that wants to see them succeed. If we take care of business here over the next three weeks, hopefully, we’re playing in Birmingham in the NCAA tournament, and we can get as big of a pro-Alabama as we can possibly get up there. It’s great for our guys and it shows the level we’ve gotten the program to, because in my first year here we didn’t get many sellouts, especially against sub-.500 teams. It’s great that we’re selling those out now.”
Benny’s Breakdown: It’s hard to not think of that Field of Dreams scene when Kevin Costner’s character, Ray Kinsella, hears “If you build it, they will come.” Longtime Alabama fans know just how difficult it was to build this Alabama program into what it has become. While Oats recently wanted to give credit to Avery Johnson for the talent his first team had when he took over in 2019, no one could have predicted this is where Alabama would be just four years later. Kudos to Oats who put the Crimson Tide on the map as a “basketball school.” An impressive feat in itself given the fact that the football team practices right next door.
