Alabama basketball comes up short against Oregon in Players Era Championship

Alabama basketball came up just short against the Oregon Ducks, falling 83-81 in the Championship Round of the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas.

Alabama trailed 81-75 with 30 seconds to play but staged a furious rally to tie the game. Aden Holloway drained a three to cut the Oregon lead to three, and then Alabama got a steal in the backcourt, and Mark Sears got fouled to go to the free-throw line.

Sears hit the first and then missed the second, but Mo Dioubate flew in for an offensive rebound and got fouled himself trying to kick it out to an open Holloway. Dioubate drained both free throws to tie the game at 81.

Oregon's Keeshawn Barthelemy beat Dioubate off the dribble and got to the rim. Derrion Reid came over to contest and forced a miss, but it left the offensive glass wide open for a put-back dunk by Nate Bittle to put the Ducks ahead by two with 4.5 seconds left.

Out of a timeout, Sears ran the length of the floor with the ball and dumped it off to an open Nelson for a layup that went, but the clock hit zero before Nelson could get the shot off. There wasn't quite enough time for Sears to get to the rim, pass, and get a shot attempt off.

Prior to the ending sequence, Oregon benefitted from a questionable (to be kind) goaltending call on Jarin Stevenson that put the Ducks ahead by two with just under two minutes to play. It was called a goaltend on the floor and the officials couldn't see enough to overturn it upon replay review. It sure looked clean from my couch...

The loss drops Alabama to 6-2 on the season and they leave Las Vegas with a frustrating defeat.

3 Takeaways from Alabama's loss to Oregon

3. Turnovers were a huge problem, again

Alabama was sloppy with the basketball once again and it was costly against a fundamentally sound Oregon team. Alabama turned it over 15 times, 10 of which happened in the first half and prevented the Crimson Tide from building a lead. Instead, the game was tied at halftime despite Oregon's struggles from behind the three-point line.

Too many turnovers are self-inflicted wounds. On multiple occasions, an Alabama player dribbled the ball off of his own foot. Turnovers are going to happen when you play at the tempo Alabama plays at, but unforced errors are a killer when you play good teams.

2. Alabama is not an elite team with this version of Mark Sears

Will the real Mark Sears please stand up? Because the version of Sears we've seen for most of this season has been a shell of the guy who put Alabama on his back and carried them to the Final Four a year ago.

Sears scored 24 points in each game of the opening two rounds of this tournament in wins over Houston and Rutgers, but he was only 11-of-32 from the field in the process. Against Oregon, Sears finished with 11 points and was 3-of-14 from the field including 1-of-11 from three.

On the season, Sears is now 15-of-52 (29%) from three. He shot just under 44% from three last season.

Even with Sears playing as poorly as he has, Alabama is a good basketball team. But they're far from great, and far from the elite, national championship-contending team they were billed to be. They need Sears to be the Sears from last season, and the guy who was the preseason National Player of the Year, to reach the heights this team hoped for.

1. All eyes are on Latrell Wrightsell's injury

Early in the second half, Alabama graduate senior guard Latrell Wrightsell went down with a non-contact lower extremity injury. He couldn't put any weight on the injured leg and had to be helped off of the court.

Wrightsell went straight back to the locker room and was later seen back on the Alabama bench with a boot on his foot. It was reported by the broadcast that he had a lower leg injury and was doubtful to return.

After the game, Nate Oats said what many feared as soon as the injury happened:

An achilles tear would obviously be a season-ending injury for Wrightsell, and a massive loss for Alabama basketball. The Tide is on the verge of getting USF transfer Chris Youngblood back from a preseason injury to get to full strength, but Wrightsell's injury likely means we'll never see the full capabilities of this team.

More than anything related to this team or this season, you just feel awful for Wrightsell in his final season of college basketball. He dealt with concussions at the end of last season and has been playing at a high level for Alabama early on in this season.

He deserves better than it ending like this.

Alabama now heads to Chapel Hill to face North Carolina on Wednesday in the SEC/ACC Challenge.