The 5th ranked Crimson Tide basketball team defeated the 10th ranked Texas A&M Aggies 94-88 on Saturday night in College Station. The game lasted three hours due to Don Dailey and his crew deciding to make it a referee show. The teams combined for 58 fouls and 98 (NINETY EIGHT!!) free throws. Fortunately for the Tide the Aggies made only 28 of their 48 free attempts.
Coach Nate Oats stayed with his normal starting lineup of Mark Sears, Labaron Philon, Grant Nelson, Jarin Stevenson, and Clifford Omoruyi. The Tide got off to a good start with a pair of Stevenson free throws and a three pointer, Omoruyi added a dunk and Bama had a quick 8-2 lead with 16:27 lead. Oats substituted with Chris Youngblood, Aiden Sherrell, Derrion Reid, Mo Dioubate, and Aden Holloway after the first timeout.
There had been 10 fouls called in the first 5:30 of the game. Youngblood and Philon both connected from long range for a 21-15 lead with 10:15 left in the half. Reid and Holloway knocked down three pointers and Sears hit back to back from the logo for a 46-39 lead with 2:29 remaining. Sears made two free throws with 12 seconds left and the Tide led 52-44 at the break.
At the half Bama shot 15-35 for 43%, with 10-22 for 46% from three. The Tide only made 12-19 at the free throw line grabbed 29 rebounds, 13 on the offensive glass, six blocks, five steals, 10 assists, and a bothersome nine turnovers. Sears led the way with 15 points and Holloway added 11 . Omoruyi had six points and seven rebounds, Stevenson contributed five points, four rebounds, three blocks, and a steal. Philon scored eight with five rebounds and five assists. Sixteen fouls were called on the Tide.
Texas A&M shot 16-44 for 36%, 3-11 for 27% from deep, and 17-32 at the charity stripe. TAM had 29 rebounds, seven turnovers, nine blocks, six steals, and seven assists. Zhuric Phelps and Pharrel Payne scored 13 points each for the Aggies. Thirteen fouls were called on the home team.
Bama used the same starters in the second half. Right out of the break Omoruyi was injured when he came down on Stevenson’s foot and twisted his ankle pretty badly. Between the foul trouble and Clifford’s injury the Tide’s vaunted depth was about to be tested. Dioubate replaced Omoruyi, but quickly was called for his third and fourth foul. With the score 54-46 with 17:53 left the Tide had grabbed a total of 17 offensive rebounds, but only had six points to show for them. Nelson had a tough day offensively but he attacked the rim for a dunk to help maintain the lead. Omoruyi appeared from the locker room and reentered the game with 16:15 left in the game.
The Tide went on a nice run, with a Holloway three, an Omoruyi follow for a basket and with 11:55 left the Tide led 62-52. Youngblood has continued to get better and better each game and had a 6-0 run of his own with a long three pointer followed by a steal which led to an old fashioned three point play and a 68-55 lead. When Sears contorted his body to make a shot in the lane the lead was up to 15 at 70-55 with 10:06 left.
With 7:41 left Bama still led 76-61 before things started getting hairy. With 5:58 left in the game the Aggies had cut the lead to 78-70. Some poor decisions leading to turnovers, plus more fouls called, put the game in peril. With 3:16 left the lead was down to 83-80. Stevenson was fouled and made the front end of a one-in-one but missed the second. After an offensive rebound Sears missed a three, but got two more tries after more rebounds and drained his third try for an 87-80 score. with 1:22 left the game was back to one possession at 87-84. An Omoruyi free throw and two each from Sears and Youngblood put it at 92-86. Sears added another pair in the last few seconds and the Tide had the hard fought 94-88 win.
Bama shot 12-33 for 36% with 3-15 from deep in the second half. Free throw shooting was better at 15-21 for 74%. Overall the team shot 27-68 for 40%, 13-37 for 35% from deep, and 27-40 for 68% at the stripe. Alabama grabbed 54 rebounds with 24 of the offensive variety. Fifteen turnovers were too many, but the Tide did have 17 assists, with six steals, nine blocked shots, 40 bench points, and only 16 second chance points off of those 24 O boards. Sears led the way again with 27 points with four assists. Holloway had an efficient 15 points on only 10 total shots. Youngblood had his best game with 14 points and five rebounds. Reid keeps finding a way to get in double figures and ended with 11. Omoruyi had seven points and 10 rebounds. Nelson struggled from the field but scored six and had eight rebounds. Philon scored eight points with six rebounds and seven assists. For the second straight game Sears was the player of the game and Stevenson the hard hat winner.
Texas A&M shot 16-39 for 39% in the second half, with only 1-7 from three. The Aggies made only 13-22 from the free throw line. Overall TAM shot 28-72 for 39%, 4-18 for 22% from deep, and 28-48 for 58% on free throws. The home team had eight turnovers, 10 blocks, nine steals, and nine turnovers. Half of the Aggies rebounds were on the offensive end, which they turned into 32 second chances points. Phelps scored 24 points while shooting 9-29 from the field. Payne added 23 points with six field goals and 11 free throws.
Another great road win for the Crimson Tide. Eight straight wins and a 14-2 record, 3-0 in the SEC. The team battled a rabid crowd, inept officiating, and major foul trouble to pull out a top 10 win. Sears has stepped his game up over the last month to match his 2023-2024 play. This was the Tide’s first win in College Station since 2015, and the first for Oats.
Oats said after the game that “they are tough, a physical, team but somehow we found a way to win.” The sixth year coach added that “we made some winning plays” and that Holloway scoring 15 points in 18 minutes on only 10 shots was very efficient. When asked about the officiating Oats said “we don’t usually foul that much, I’ll have to look at the film, but we had a lot of rebounding fouls called on us, maybe we were holding them to keep them off the glass.”
Next up is a home game with Ole Miss on Tuesday night. The game will tip off at 6 p.m. CT and sand be seen on ESPNU.
Roll Tide!
