In an exhibition game in Huntsville that took longer than anyone in attendance or watching wanted due to foul happy officiating, Alabama basketball improved to 2-0 on its exhibition slate by beating Memphis 96-88 in the final tune-up game prior to the regular season starting next Monday evening.
Last week, Alabama routed Wake Forest in an exhibition at Boutwell Arena in Birmingham.
The Crimson Tide broke out to a 20 point halftime lead with a 49-29 blitzing of the Tigers in the first half. Credit to Penny Hardaway and his team for battling back and never fully going away, but Alabama held on to win the game despite a second half where both teams spent more time at the foul line than anywhere else.
Mark Sears led the way for the Crimson Tide with 20 points. Labaron Philon, Houston Mallette, Jarin Stevenson, and Clifford Omoruyi all finished in double figures.
Memphis is an extremely physical team, which made them a perfect test for an Alabama team gearing up for the beginning of the regular season. The Crimson Tide was still without the four players that missed the first exhibition game. Latrell Wrightsell, Grant Nelson, and Aiden Sherrell were held out with minor injuries and likely would have played if it was a regular season game. Chris Youngblood remains out with the ankle injury, but notably was absent the boot he'd been wearing.
What did we learn from Alabama's second exhibition?
3 Takeaways
3. College basketball officials still hate college basketball
Neither Nate Oats nor Penny Hardaway were probably able to glean as much as they hoped because the officiating crew refused to let the game have any flow whatsoever. The game tipped at 7pm CT and didn't end until around 9:40.
Everyone knew this was an exhibition except the officials. Both coaches had to agree in the first half that there would be no foul outs or both would have struggled to field a team in the final few minutes.
Overall, the teams combined for 96 free throws. It made the entire second half completely unwatchable. There was zero flow to the game and both teams just kept trading trips to the charity stripe. I can't imagine either coach was happy with how this game was officiated.
You shouldn't be surprised, however, because college basketball refs hate the sport. They do everything they can to drag it down. They think you are tuning in to watch them and not the players.
2. The depth for this Alabama team is very real, even with four guys out
What was notable, despite the ridiculous officiating, is that Alabama is extremely deep. Three of the players who were out are projected starters, and Sherrell will log plenty of minutes as the backup center to Clifford Omoruyi.
Despite that, Alabama was confident in playing eight of the nine guys available. Freshman Naas Cunningham only logged six minutes and doesn't seem to be a factor in the rotation at this point, but everyone else is good enough to play.
Oats made a change to the starting lineup, starting three guards in Mark Sears, Labaron Philon, and Aden Holloway all together. Freshman Derrion Reid joined Omoruyi in the frontcourt to round out the starting five.
Houston Mallette played the least minutes next to Cunningham with 14, but he was productive in those minutes knocking down 3/5 three-point attempts. All three of his makes came in transition, where he was one of the best shooters in the country last season at Pepperdine.
Houston in transition is a thing of beauty!#RollTide | #BlueCollarBasketball pic.twitter.com/wkfL3gpHtH
— Alabama Men’s Basketball (@AlabamaMBB) October 29, 2024
Mo Dioubate is another player who had an uncertain role, but he continues doing good things when he is in the game, and he connected on another three, something that hampered his ability to see the floor last season.
This team is ridiculously deep, and they play well off of each other. It will be interesting to see how Oats rolls out his rotation when the regular season starts next week and Wrightsell, Nelson, and Sherrell are all able to play, and then in the next few weeks when Youngblood is back.
1. Labaron Philon is one-and-done
I haven't seen enough of anyone else to make this statement for sure, but I'd be surprised if there are many freshmen guards in the country better than Labaron Philon. He was a late add to Alabama's recruiting class after initially signing with Kansas, and despite Alabama's depth at guard the true freshman has carved out a role on this team.
Philon stuffs the stat sheet, and has so far shown to be a better shooter than anyone realized. He shot 50% in the first exhibition game, and connected on 2-of-5 tonight. He was Alabama's second leading scorer with 17 points and added 5 rebounds and 7 assists.
Philon hustles at all times and is always around the basketball. He's already a very good defender, perhaps Alabama's best on ball defender already.
Any dream you might have had of Philon running the show at point for Alabama next year, you can go ahead and forget about. He'll play one season in Tuscaloosa and be in the NBA this time a year from now.