Behind a brilliant Labaron Philon Jr., Alabama stares down adversity and rolls into the Round of 32
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TAMPA — Winning in March is hard.
It’s tough to win NCAA Tournament games even in the best of circumstances, when your team enters the NCAA Tournament healthy, balanced on both sides of the basketball, and free from distractions off the court. Throw one of those variables out of balance, and the degree of difficulty rises.
Throw all of them in flux and you become a maelstrom of March mystery ripe for an upset.
Or so you’d think, until you watch the Alabama Crimson Tide.
Entering the NCAA Tournament this week, there were plenty of reasons to doubt the Crimson Tide.
On the court, the Crimson Tide struggle to guard and lack frontcourt depth, a pair of loud flaws that have limited their ceiling this year, even as another astoundingly efficient offense, led by the outstanding play of All-American Labaron Philon Jr., Aden Holloway, and budding star big man Aiden Sherrell, have kept the floor plenty high.
Off the court, Holloway, arguably Alabama’s second-best player, was arrested last week for possessing more than a pound of marijuana. That’s 453 grams, if you are keeping score at home, which is a lot of weed, even for Harold and Kumar or Cheech and Chong.
The Holloway arrest is the latest in a string of off-court legal issues that have followed Alabama in the Nate Oats era, from the murder of Jamea Harris by a close associate of the program, Michael “Buzz” Davis (Darius Miles, a former Crimson Tide player, is still on trial for the murder) to the far more benign but certainly controversial effort to fix Alabama’s frontcourt issues by playing G League pro and former Alabama star Charles Bediako.
At some point, you’d think Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne would grow weary of the negative headlines and publicity surrounding Alabama’s hoops culture under Nate Oats, but winning covers up all manner of ills.
Under Oats, Alabama manages to win about as much as anyone in America. Oats arrived on the Capstone in 2019, and all he’s done since is win 70% of his games, advance to 4 Sweet 16s, an Elite Eight, and the program’s long-awaited maiden Final Four. That’s a ton of March success amid the off-court chaos, and why it’s so easy for those in power to decline to ask Oats hard questions.
On Friday afternoon in Tampa, scrappy Hofstra, coached by former NBA champion Speedy Claxton, asked plenty of tough questions of Alabama for 40 minutes.
The Pride banged in 3s at a 46% clip, contested almost every Alabama shot at the rim, and forced the Crimson Tide to play much of the opening half from behind. Hofstra harassed Philon, Alabama’s All-American, plenty too, forcing 3 Philon turnovers in the first 10 minutes (he’d finish with 5) and limiting him to just 8 points (on 3-6 shooting) over the first 20 minutes of play. Alabama trailed by as many as 10 points in the first half, thanks to a barrage of Hofstra 3s and untimely Crimson Tide turnovers.
Claxton had his mid-major champions ready to play.
No matter.
As has consistently been the case under Nate Oats, Alabama had the March answers.
The Crimson Tide closed the first half on an extended 19-7 run, led primarily by Sherrell, who grabbed 6 offensive rebounds in the first 20 alone to create second-chance possessions for the Crimson Tide and finished with an outstanding 15 points, 15 rebounds, and 2 blocks.
Philon took over from there, scoring 21 of his game-high 29 points in the second half, burying all 3 of his triples after the intermission. Philon also helped Alabama dominate the taller, bigger Pride on the glass, 46-34, grabbing 8 rebounds, and as usual, created for his teammates, dishing out a game-high 7 assists.
There’s almost nothing Philon can’t do on a basketball court, which is part of why Alabama can lose an Aden Holloway, fall behind by 10 in its first game without him, and steamroll a quality mid-major by 20 points anyway.
“There are times when I’m out there, and he’ll do something, and I’ll stop and I’m like ‘Dang, man. He makes incredible plays, crazy shots, he’s nice. Sure am glad he’s on my team,” Aiden Sherrell said after the win.
Nate Oats must be glad he has Sherrell, too.
The sophomore has scored in double figures in 9 of Alabama’s last 10 contests and pulled down 3 or more offensive rebounds in 5 of those games (all Alabama wins). Sherrell’s effort helped Alabama grab 17 offensive rebounds for the second time in 3 games, earning lethal bonus possessions for an offense that’s already extremely efficient.
“We’ve tried to focus on it throughout the year,” Oats said after the win, noting the Tide have had their issues rebounding the basketball.
“We’ve done it in somewhat bigger games. We’ve also gotten drilled on it in somewhat bigger games. Arizona, Purdue, just got destroyed. We’ve challenged our guys. We’ve made it a bigger point of emphasis, and it’s great to see Aiden Sherrell come up with 15, Philon come up with 8, and a lot of other guys pitched in. In the first half, the only guy that had no offensive rebound was Sherrell. So we challenged everybody else. I think he had 6 in the first half and nobody else had 1. Second half, we had guys, Amari ends up with 2, Philon with 2, and Taylor gets 1. We end up with 17 (offensive) boards.”
It’s a formula the Crimson Tide may need moving forward.
Texas Tech, still adjusting to playing smaller without All-American forward JT Toppin, was dominated on the glass in late season, post-Toppin injury losses to TCU, BYU, and Iowa State.
Alabama missed Aden Holloway on Friday, especially in the opening 20, as it struggled to spacing the floor without him and a handful of shots Holloway usually gets were taken by a committee, most of whom struggled to make shots as Alabama hit just 5 of 19 deep tries in the opening half.
Oats, an analytical guru who knows wining in March happens at the margins, may lean on Sherrell and crashing the offensive glass for extra possessions, hoping a few extra possessions will make the difference in a battle of exceptional backcourts.
In many ways, Sunday’s Round of 32 game will be a battle of 2 teams still reinventing themselves in the face of adversity and absence.
Many programs facing that challenge falter.
Nate Oats and Alabama? They tend to survive and advance.
Neil Blackmon covers SEC football and basketball for SaturdayDownSouth.com. An attorney, he is also a member of the Football and Basketball Writers Associations of America. He also coaches basketball.
