The 2nd seeded Alabama Crimson Tide defeated 7th seeded St Mary’s 80-60 to advance to the sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. Bama improved to 27-8 on the year while St Mary’s fell to 29-6. Coach Nate Oats now will take his team to the second weekend of the tournament for the third straight year, and fourth time in five seasons.
Oats went back to the starting lineup of Mark Sears, Labaron Philon, Chris Youngblood, Grant Nelson, and Clifford Omoruyi. Nelson did not start in the Tides first round victory over Robert Morris after injuring his knee during the SEC Tournament. Oats tried to hold Nelson out of that game all together but was forced to put him in for the last seven minutes of the game after the Tide fell behind. Nelson’s strong play down the stretch of the game allowed Bama to advance over Robert Morris.
The Tide got on the board first on a three point basket by Youngblood right out of the gate. Nelson was active all over the court, grabbing rebounds and disrupting the Gaels very tall front court. Omoruyi went out hobbling after one minute of play. The big center hurt his ankle late in the Robert Morris win and seemed to have aggravated it. The staff took Omoruyi into the locker room for treatment.
The scoring for both team was slow, and St Mary’s took their first lead of the game at 6-5 with 15:58 left in the half. Mo DIoubate made his presence know and scored to give the Tide the lead back. With 13:45 left the Gaels took a 10-9 lead, their last of the night. With the scored tied 13-13, Nelson tossed in a three pointer with 11:20 left and the Tide was off and running.
Youngblood went on a tear, Dioubate made some hoops, and Omoruyi tossed down some alley-oop dunks and the Tide closed the half strong to take a 42-29 lead into the locker room.
In the first half Alabama shot 16-29 for 55%, 5-9 for 56% from three and made 5-8 free throws. The Tide did a great job on the boards and led 26-16 over St Marys. Bama also had four blocks, no steals, nine assists, and turned it over eight times. Youngblood tallied 13 points on 4-5 shooting with 3-3 from deep. Dioubate scored seven and had four rebounds at the break. Nelson scored six and rebounded seven misses. Philon only had two points but contributed three assists and three rebounds. Sears was 2-7 from the field and scored four points.
St Mary’s was held to 9-36 for 25% from the field with 0-6 from deep as the Tide played inspired defense, especially in the paint. The Gaels made 11-14 free throws, dished out three assists, had one block, five steals, and did not commit a single turnover.
The same starters came out for the second half. Omoruyi had two straight dunks on perfect alley-oop passes to get the Tide out of a little funk. St Mary’s was making shots they were missing in the first half, and also rebounding the ball much better. With 15:45 left the Gaels had cut the lead to 48-40.
Dioubate hit another three pointer for his only points of the second half to make the lead 51-41 with 15:30 remaining. Philon scored on a driving, twisting layup to keep the lead at 10 points. With over 13 minutes left St Marys turned the ball over for the first time all game. Aiden Holloway scored five straight for the Tide and with 9:40 left the lead was 11 at 58-47. Sears, who had been quite all night, scored two straight baskets at the rim and Omoruyi threw down yet another dunk to built a comfortable 64-50 lead with 7:41 left.
From that point it was just a matter of not turning the ball over, not making dumb fouls, making free throws, and running out the clock. Omoruyi and Nelson both slammed home buckets and with 5:02 left the lead was 12 at 72-60. Philon, Sears, and Holloway knocked down free throws down the stretch, and Jarin Stevenson made a late layup to give the Tide 80 points. The significance of that is St Mary’s had not allowed as many as 80 points in over 100 games, dating back to March 8th, 2022.
In the second half the Tide shot 13-27 for 49%, 2-8 for 25% from three, and made 10-12 free throws. Overall Bama shot 29-56 for 52%, 7-12 for 42% from deep, and 15-20 for 75% at the charity stripe. The Crimson Tide finished with 41 rebounds, seven blocks, four steals, 15 assists, nine fast break points, 10 second chance points, 27 bench points. and committed 11 turnovers total after having eight at half time.
Six players scored in double figures with Youngblood leading the way with 13. Nelson scored 12, had eight rebounds, a block, and two assists. Holloway mad 4-6 shots to score 12 points with three assists. Sears also had a dozen with three assists, but failed to make a three point shot in four attempts. Omoruyi collected a double-double with 10 points and 11 rebounds and added two assists and two blocks. Dioubate scored 10 points with five rebounds and only played one minute in the second half.
Saint Mary’s improved to 44% on 15-34 shooting with 3-8 from long range and made 4-7 free throws. Overall the Gaels shot 24-70 for 34%, 3-14 for 21% from three, and 15-21 at the free throw line. Saint Mary’s had 36 rebounds, with 15 on the offensive end, made seven steals, blocked four shots, dished out eight assists, and finished with six turnovers- all in the last seven minutes. Mitchell Saxen led the Gaels with 15 points and had five rebounds. Harry Wessels added 12 points and eight rebounds, and Augustus Marciulionis scored 11. Marciulionis is the son of NBA Hall of Famer, Saunas Marciulionis.
The Tide is now going to the round of 16 for the third time in a row for the first time in school history. After the game Oats said “we said the tougher team is going to win, and our guys really stepped up and played tough, defended, and rebounded.” On Omoruyi’s spectacular play of late Oats added “I hope something is clicking for him right now because when he plays like this we are a completely different team.” Oats pointed out that St Mary’s was the second best offensive rebounding team in the nation behind only Texas A&M, and that “I thought our guys did a really good job.” The sixth year coach mentioned how long it had been since a team scored 80 on the Gaels and that his teams depth and tempo seemed to get to them, saying “man, they are tough”
This was truly a team win with six players scoring in double figures, with no one scoring over thirteen. The toughness was noticeable as help defense was much better than a lot of what we have seen this year. The rebounding bounce back from the Robert Morris game was needed against this Gael team.
Next up is a trip to lovely Newark, NJ to take on the BYU Cougars on Thursday. Brigham Young is a high scoring team in the team with suspect defense much like the Tide. The time and network will be announced soon. Lets ride this wave as long as we can!
Roll Tide
