A magical run by an unexpected team in the conference tournament is always fun to watch for most, but it was not a fun watch for Alabama fans Friday night. Ole Miss is on a heater right now, adding the Crimson Tide to their list of victims, and the most impressive part about this is that they have not trailed in any of their three SEC Tournament games.
The Rebels got out to a quick start, and for the rest of the night, Alabama was chasing and never quite caught up. It seemed every time Alabama was about to take a lead, and the crowd got into it in Nashville, Ilias Kamardine or AJ Storr had the perfect response.
In the second half, Labaron Philon did all he could to keep his team within striking distance, hitting big shot after shot or finding the open guy. Most of Alabama's success in the second half offensively happened when the ball was in Philon's hands. As frustrating as a majority of the game was, Labaron had the ball in his hands with the game on the line with the chance to tie or win the game, and I would have liked to have him put up a shot rather than pass, though, to the Ole Miss defense for forcing the pass, and getting the big block on Aiden Sherrell.
The one positive of an early tournament exit is that you get a few extra days to get ready for the NCAA Tournament. I don't like the idea of going into the tournament losing two of the last three games, but it is now a new sudden-death season, and nothing else to this point matters. There isn't time to dwell on anything in the past, but hopefully Friday's failure will let this team know they can't come out slow or miss so many at the rim next week. It will be interesting to see what region this team lands in, and I would assume not seeing the weekend will probably drop the Tide from a three to a four seed with so many other teams still playing.