Thoughts on Alabama’s First SEC Loss To Tennessee

[Jordan Harper]

Basketball is a game of matchups and execution.

Tennessee is a bad matchup and Alabama definitely didn’t execute. 0/2.

Tennessee dominated on points off turnovers at 26-2 with Alabama turning it over 19 times. They have guards that can really defend and make life terrible for other guards, and that’s what happened tonight. Sears, JQ, and Bradley did not have good games at all. When Alabama’s guards are not playing well, then it’s very tough for Alabama to score efficiently.

I really liked the effort and thought they played hard all game. The physicality that UT was allowed to play with was very excessive throughout the game and I thought that affected a lot of turnovers. They shot well from 3 (9/24) but just couldn’t have that patented 10-0 Alabama run to either pull ahead of take command.

Chalk it up as a loss and move on. Alabama won’t face a team that physical and elite defensively again unless they face UT in the SECT or Houston in the NCAA. They have to learn to play through it, but I thought they grew up some too. Even with the extreme physicality around the rim, Alabama always hung around within a few points all game.

They go home finally to face UGA and then back on the road to South Carolina. Thankfully the schedule lightens up some coming up with more home games.

 

[BamaNavyCPO]

Every time I think Q has turned the corner, he falls back into his bad habbit. He had way too many TOs and most were from careless passes. He kept playing 1 on 3 or more and failed. It's hard to beat the YMCA with 19 TOs, not to mention against an outstanding defensive team.
Foul calls weighed heavily in the Vols favor. For a minute I thought those were the same guys that reffed the football game back in Oct/22.
Oh well, pick yourselves up and get ready for Jawjah.
RTR!!!!

 

[StablerCountry]

I'm not knocking Bama with this statement. I had already said in previous threads that no team in the country would be expected to go on the road at Auburn and Tennessee back to back and win them both. However I will say, I viewed this game after the Auburn win as a measuring stick on Bama's chances with a deep run into the NCAA tourney. Bama did not pass the test tonight. Not enough of the guys showed up bringing their best effort. Bama can afford to drop this game though. So the lead is still good for now. Should only be one real threat to lose left and that is @ Texas AM. This team won't fold IMO.

 

[tydzbk]

Refs were horrible. JQ was bad. It's surprising that oat's plan is for him to throw in the ball from our of bounds. Still. That's still the plan. There's a problem when you know that you don't want your point guard to touch the ball. Point guard was assisting the opponent all night. Refs flat out cheat bama and no one seems to care much about fixing that either.

 

[Codie B]

I'm not knocking Bama with this statement. I had already said in previous threads that no team in the country would be expected to go on the road at Auburn and Tennessee back to back and win them both. However I will say, I viewed this game after the Auburn win as a measuring stick on Bama's chances with a deep run into the NCAA tourney. Bama did not pass the test tonight. Not enough of the guys showed up bringing their best effort. Bama can afford to drop this game though. So the lead is still good for now. Should only be one real threat to lose left and that is @ Texas AM. This team won't fold IMO.

Almost no BB game is a gimme now. Auburn and Arkansas, while thankfully in Coleman, are not given wins imop. They will be tough fought games.

 

[cola68]

Guard play has to toughen up …

I think the game plan to go against their defense was stagnant at best…

UT bottled us up after Bama’s first screen and then bama had no answer, especially when they were doubled.

Physical game is just a euphemism for the refs let one team play tackle football on their end of the court.

Good game to test how bama will do in the tourney … they did not pass this test.. but will they grow and learn ?

 

[gossy]

TV announcers said at the beginning that the refs were going to let "them play". We didn't match UT's physicality. In reality we probably can't because of the difference in our rosters. Not all of our turnovers were the result of UT's aggresive play. Many were simply because of our sloppy and careless ball handling.

 

[winin11]

Unforced turnovers were a part of the problem as well. We just couldnt hold on to the ball. Our guards dribbled the ball either out of bounds, or stepped on the line while possessing the ball several times. TN has the #1 defense in the nation, but they didn't cause all of our turnovers. There were also a number of times while trying to rebound, our players just lost the ball out of bounds.
I.m not even going to talk about the officials in the game allowing slap fouls and excessive contact.
absurd.
CNO has a few days to get these players head right and ready to play and it will be interesting to see what kind of energy and enthusiasm they come out with Saturday.
We are in great shape still to get a really good seed in the tourney if this group can pull their bootstraps up and get rolling again.
Roll Tide!

 

[TideFever]

I really liked the effort and thought they played hard all game. The physicality that UT was allowed to play with was very excessive throughout the game and I thought that affected a lot of turnovers.

They let the Vols play like a 90s team. This Bama team just flat can't handle going against a big physical team where the officials let one side treat the paint like the line of scrimmage in football. We just aren't strong enough to hold up to that punishment for 40 minutes. The Vols are basically what Grant coached into his teams until the NCAA made a concerted effort to clean up the rough play. Apparently it's back.

To me the only difference in this game and the OU game was OU was willing to take early shots when they were there and they had some guys that couldn't miss from anywhere. If the Vols weren't so focused on emptying the shot clock every time they could have blown us out of the gym just like OU.

I thought Oats should have lost it when Miller was called for blocking in the second half. He was set, outside the circle, contact was made by the offense, and he fell. Even Bilas called it out saying it was in every sense legal guarding position and could not be a block. A flop maybe but that wasn't what was called. Bilas called out a lot of questionable fouls and no calls without harping on it. If nothing else Oats should have made it a point early in the game to work the refs hard about the physical play. We can't handle it and he has know this.

In spite of that we still could have won if we take care of the ball in the last 10 minutes.

To me the key sequence in the second half was starting around 2:45 to go in the game. They had a 4 point lead and held the ball to almost zero on the shot clock. Zeigler misses a short shot where we have two guys focusing on him and another (Burnett?) kind of standing around. They get the easy board and easy put back. Then on the other end JQ goes hero ball and turns it over. They get it back and it was game over really unless we hit some near half court 3 point shots.

Knowing what was like going to happen in this game I had really hoped Miller and Bradley could carry the team a bit. But Miller was completely throttled every time he had the ball and his defense wasn't that great either.

 

[Codie B]

They let the Vols play like a 90s team. This Bama team just flat can't handle going against a big physical team where the officials let one side treat the paint like the line of scrimmage in football. We just aren't strong enough to hold up to that punishment for 40 minutes. The Vols are basically what Grant coached into his teams until the NCAA made a concerted effort to clean up the rough play. Apparently it's back.

To me the only difference in this game and the OU game was OU was willing to take early shots when they were there and they had some guys that couldn't miss from anywhere. If the Vols weren't so focused on emptying the shot clock every time they could have blown us out of the gym just like OU.

I thought Oats should have lost it when Miller was called for blocking in the second half. He was set, outside the circle, contact was made by the offense, and he fell. Even Bilas called it out saying it was in every sense legal guarding position and could not be a block. A flop maybe but that wasn't what was called. Bilas called out a lot of questionable fouls and no calls without harping on it. If nothing else Oats should have made it a point early in the game to work the refs hard about the physical play. We can't handle it and he has know this.

In spite of that we still could have won if we take care of the ball in the last 10 minutes.

To me the key sequence in the second half was starting around 2:45 to go in the game. They had a 4 point lead and held the ball to almost zero on the shot clock. Zeigler misses a short shot where we have two guys focusing on him and another (Burnett?) kind of standing around. They get the easy board and easy put back. Then on the other end JQ goes hero ball and turns it over. They get it back and it was game over really unless we hit some near half court 3 point shots.

Knowing what was like going to happen in this game I had really hoped Miller and Bradley could carry the team a bit. But Miller was completely throttled every time he had the ball and his defense wasn't that great either.

I wrote this on the game thread right after it happened, but that call on Miller was just AWFUL! I am glad I am not Oats, because it would have probably been detrimental to the team, but they would have ejected me from the game, because I would have been out on the court screaming at the ref.

 

[Codie B]

Unforced turnovers were a part of the problem as well. We just couldnt hold on to the ball. Our guards dribbled the ball either out of bounds, or stepped on the line while possessing the ball several times. TN has the #1 defense in the nation, but they didn't cause all of our turnovers. There were also a number of times while trying to rebound, our players just lost the ball out of bounds.
I.m not even going to talk about the officials in the game allowing slap fouls and excessive contact.
absurd.
CNO has a few days to get these players head right and ready to play and it will be interesting to see what kind of energy and enthusiasm they come out with Saturday.
We are in great shape still to get a really good seed in the tourney if this group can pull their bootstraps up and get rolling again.
Roll Tide!

I wrote on the game thread during the game it looked like they put grease on the ball every time we had to handle it. I can’t recall the last time I saw so many silly, stupid turnovers. It was like watching my nephews 6th grade team play.

 

[TideFever]

I wrote this on the game thread right after it happened, but that call on Miller was just AWFUL! I am glad I am not Oats, because it would have probably been detrimental to the team, but they would have ejected me from the game, because I would have been out on the court screaming at the ref.

I would have lost it much earlier in the game than when that call happened. This would have been a Wimp Sanderson special where the official rolls up the Ts just so his hearing isn't permanently damaged.

Plavsic shouldn't have made it to halftime without fouling out. He was a mass of humanity that was allowed to push around whoever he wanted whenever he wanted. The only fouls against him were when he tried to swat at something instead of using his body and meat hooks.

 

[Codie B]

I would have lost it much earlier in the game than when that call happened. This would have been a Wimp Sanderson special where the official rolls up the Ts just so his hearing isn't permanently damaged.

Plavsic shouldn't have made it to halftime without fouling out. He was a mass of humanity that was allowed to push around whoever he wanted whenever he wanted. The only fouls against him were when he tried to swat at something instead of using his body and meat hooks.

Agreed, but if I could have held it together that long, that would have been the call that broke the camels back.

 

[Sheerperfection]

Alabama played poorly and the inconsistency of the way the game was called greatly helped Tennessee. Alabama could not touch them and Tennessee played defense with a baseball bat. In this scenario Alabama had to play great to win. Coach Oats I believe was right when he said Tennessee will not be allowed to play that physical when they get in the NCAA tournament.

 

[BamaNavyCPO]

Alabama played poorly and the inconsistency of the way the game was called greatly helped Tennessee. Alabama could not touch them and Tennessee played defense with a baseball bat. In this scenario Alabama had to play great to win. Coach Oats I believe was right when he said Tennessee will not be allowed to play that physical when they get in the NCAA tournament.

This ^^^

 

[tydzbk]

When a team hits the court in full rugby mode like that, "letting them play" doesn't describe it. May be how they want to sell it, but that's not what we saw from officials that looked as much like a fix job as any I've seen.

 

[lainey2020]

When a team hits the court in full rugby mode like that, "letting them play" doesn't describe it. May be how they want to sell it, but that's not what we saw from officials that looked as much like a fix job as any I've seen.

Sorta like the football game over there this year.