Alabama Basketball: Crimson Tide closed strong to edge South Alabama

Alabama Basketball won a hard-fought game in Tuscaloosa Tuesday night, taking down a spunky South Alabama team, 73-68. The Crimson Tide muddled around much of the game before putting the Jaguars away late.

Jaden Shackelford and Keon Ellis led the Crimson Tide in scoring with 18 points each. They were also the team’s leading rebounders, with Shackelford pulling down 10 boards and Ellis getting six. Ellis continued his solid performances this season, netting his points from just 10 field goal attempts.

South Alabama out-rebounded the Tide by one and had advantages in shooting from outside the arc and at the foul line. In a sloppy, turnover-plagued game, the Tide gave the ball up 22 times to 21 times for South Alabama. The Jaguars also took more shots than the Crimson Tide, but the best shooting team won, with a 44% to 38% edge to the Tide.

Nate Oats post-game comments, provided by Brett Hudson and Roger Hoover.

• “Give a ton of credit to South Alabama, they came in and played hard.”
• “I didn’t think our attention to detail was great on a lot of stuff. We ended up with 22 turnovers, 8 were on charges.”
• “They outrebounded us, we turned it over more. We’re just fortunate we shot it better than them.”
• “Our guys got to be a little tougher.”
• “We need to get stops and get out in transition to break some games open.”
• “Jusaun Holt ended up with more blue collar points than some of our guys that played 20+ minutes. He had 3 rebounds in 8 1/2 minutes, we can work with that.”

Nate Oats got a technical in the game for stepping on the court to argue a call – or technically a no-call. Alabama Basketball always wins when Nate Oats gets a technical foul called on him.

The full video of Nate Oats’ post-game comments is available below.

Next up for the Crimson Tide should be a tune-up game Friday night at home against Oakland. Being a bit ragged early in the season should trigger no alarms. In the next couple of weeks, a game with 22 turnovers and shooting 26% from outside the arc will lead to losses against top teams. From Thanksgiving night to Dec. 14, the Tide has Iona (and other tournament teams), Gonzaga, Houston and Memphis.

Ken Pomeroy has some of college basketball’s most accurate rankings. After Tuesday night’s win, Pomeroy’s rankings dropped the Tide to No. 18.