After putting up a historic offensive performance in the Sweet 16 vs BYU, Alabama just couldn’t get anything going tonight and it cost them badly as they were blown out by Duke in Newark.
We knew that the Tide would have to play its best game to knock off a Blue Devils team that has been the best in the nation by most every advanced metric. Unfortunately, that just didn’t happen tonight. Mark Sears, the unquestioned leader of this team, followed up a legendary Sweet 16 performance with one of the worst games of his Alabama career. He was hardly alone, as Alabama collectively had a terrible shooting night, but there was no path to a Tide win without a great game from him.
That is to take nothing away from Duke, of course. They are where they are for a reason and will be a tough out for whoever they play going forward. They have three freshmen who will be lottery picks in a few months, and their length and skill are tough to handle. They may well have won tonight even if Alabama had knocked down more open threes. But the poor shooting from Alabama provided the lopsided margin.
We had hope for a win in this one but no expectations. At 28-9 vs the toughest schedule in the land, this season can be called nothing but a success, and three consecutive Sweet 16s with two Elite Eights is something to build on. Of course, everyone’s roster will turn over again so we’ll see what things look like next season.
It was a good run, folks.
Roll Tide.
