Alabama basketball falls to UConn in first loss of season

On Friday, the Alabama men’s basketball team got an impressive 81-70 victory over No. 12 Michigan State to get to 5-0 for the first time since the 2017-18 season. Unfortunately, the unblemished record didn’t last much longer, as the Crimson Tide followed it up with a 67-82 loss to No. 20 UConn about 24 hours later.

Of course, that now moves them to 5-1 and removes them from the remaining field for the Phil Knight Invitational in Portland (Ore.). Alabama got down by 15 points on two separate occasions in the first half of the semifinal matchup, but the players battled back to cut the lead to only five before halftime.

At one point early in the second half, the Crimson Tide were able to even things up, but turnovers in the first half and missed shots in the second were too much to overcome. It wasn’t long before the Huskies had reestablished a substantial double-digit lead and never looked back.

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After averaging 23 points and 8.3 rebounds over his last four games, freshman phenom Brandon Miller put up 18 points with nine rebounds, three assists and two blocks against UConn. It wasn’t a bad performance at all, especially with him hitting 50% of his six attempts from beyond the three-point line.

There were some dry spells in there, however.

Miller didn’t score his first points of the game until there was 8:20 left in the first half. Somehow, he still managed to get 10 on the board before that half was out. He then went on to only score two points over the first 17.5 minutes of the second half before adding six more in the final 2:38 of the game.

Overall, it was another quality performance.

One significant issue was the 21 turnovers committed by Alabama, which included 17 in the first half. Obviously, there was an improvement made on that front in the second half, but that’s something they’ll need to get corrected — or at least for the most part — moving forward.

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The other major issue was simply missing shots. At one point late in the game, Alabama was 0-of-7 from three-point range and 6-of-21 from the field. You have to love their willingness to battle back from 15 down in the first half, but missing shots at that rate are rarely going to lead to a favorable outcome.

The only other Tide player to break double-digit points was fellow freshman Jaden Bradley, who scored a career-high 12 points. The Rochester (N.Y.) native also added four assists and two rebounds, but he also contributed three of the 21 turnovers. Noah Clowney came close to scoring in the double digits with nine points.

Alabama will be back on the court against No. 1 North Carolina on Sunday at 2:30 p.m. CT (3:30 ET). That game will air on ESPN. Then, it’ll play South Dakota State back in Tuscaloosa on Dec. 3. That game will air on the SEC Network before the Crimson Tide follow it up with a road game against No. 2 Houston on Dec. 10.

Stay tuned for more coverage of Alabama basketball from BamaInsider.

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