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4 buckets and 1 brick from Alabama basketball's 41-point demolition of Oakland

Aden Holloway made his return from suspension, and Alabama basketball rolled to a 109-68 win over Oakland on Monday night in Tuscaloosa.
ByJohn Mitchell
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

Aden Holloway returned to the court on Monday night, and Alabama basketball had its most efficient performance of the season on the offensive end of the court.

The Crimson Tide dominated visiting Oakland 109-68 in Coleman Coliseum. They tied a program record with 30 assists, hitting 63% of their shots from the field and knocking down 24 three-pointers on a 52% clip.

The ball was moving, and there was little the Golden Grizzlies could do to stop it.

Alabama is now 3-0 heading into its first test of the young season on Friday with Seton Hall coming to Tuscaloosa.

Let's assess the winners (buckets) and losers (bricks) from Alabama's 41-point shellacking of Oakland:

Buckets:

London Jemison

Where else would we start but with the guy who was a walking bucket for the Crimson Tide on Monday night? Jemison was the beneficiary of the ball movement, consistently getting open looks from three-point range.

Jemison tied a career high with 20 points and didn't miss a shot. He went 7-of-7 from the floor and 6-of-6 from three-point range. He also added three rebounds and three assists for good measure in his 17 minutes.

Jemison is off to a scorching-hot start to his sophomore campaign. He's now 11-of-16 (69%) from three through the first three games.

Amari Allen

Coming off his first career triple-double on Friday in the win over Arkansas State, Amari Allen followed it up with another efficient, unselfish performance against Oakland. Allen played just 19 minutes in the blowout win and still managed 14 points and 6 assists, while knocking down 4-of-5 shots from the field. More importantly, he finished with zero turnovers.

Allen has been excellent as the team's point guard so far this season, and that role didn't change a bit with the return of Holloway.

Allen is averaging 14/6/7 with only one turnover per game so far this season. And that's on only 23 minutes per game so far. He's been awesome, and his numbers are going to increase once his workload does.

Aden Holloway

Man, it was fun to get to see Holloway play basketball again. His sheer gravity changes the calculus of how teams can defend Alabama. You have to mark him at all times, and you have to defend him far beyond the three-point line. If you don't, he can pull up and knock down 35-footers like this:

Holloway started slow in his return and missed his first two three-point attempts. But he settled in from there and finished 4-of-8 from deep to record 12 points in 21 minutes.

To his credit, too, Holloway was engaged on the defensive end, something that will be critical for Alabama's hopes of making a deep run this year.

Blue Collar Brandon Garrison

Garrison's counting stats weren't much to write home about on Monday night. He finished with just 9 points, 1 rebound, and 2 blocks across 22 minutes. But there has been one constant through three games for Alabama:

Brandon Garrison has won the hard hat in all three.

Garrison has been a blue-collar demon for Oats and the Tide so far. That has to be salt in the wound for Kentucky, which complained about Garrison's effort for two seasons in Lexington. He appears to have taken that personally, and he has busted his butt in all three games for the Crimson Tide.

Bricks:

Rebounding

The only complaint Oats had in the postgame was that the rebounding wasn't good enough. Alabama lost the battle on the boards to Oakland 37-31. The Golden Grizzlies tripled up the Crimson Tide 21-7 on offensive boards. Chris Fields Jr. had seven offensive rebounds, which matched Alabama's total.

That looks worse than it actually was, considering Alabama held Oakland to 35% shooting from the floor. Alabama shot 63%. There were a lot more offensive rebound opportunities for Oakland.

But Alabama didn't do a good enough job of clearing the defensive glass. Playing without Jamarion Davis-Fleming hurt, but Garrison and Drew Fielder combining for five rebounds across 38 minutes between the two isn't good enough.

That has been an early concern for Oats, and it doesn't seem to be getting much better.

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