Familiar struggles with bigs lead to Alabama's road loss at Auburn

AUBURN, Ala. – The Alabama men’s basketball team lost its seventh game of the season on Wednesday night at Neville Arena, falling 99-81 on the road against in-state rival Auburn.

Like the previous six losses, the Crimson Tide struggled to defend the Tigers’ post players, as forwards Johni Broome and Jaylin Williams combined to score 50 of Auburn’s 99 points.

“We didn’t want to double because I saw other teams have doubled and gave up a bunch of threes to them,” said Alabama head coach Nate Oats after the game. “In hindsight, as bad as we lost, maybe we should have doubled more and then try to rotate around and try to take the three away. They only hit five threes tonight.”

Between the two forwards, they pulled down 13 rebounds as Auburn won on the glass, 42-35, and went 18-21 at the line as the Tigers attempted 50 free throws on 33 Alabama fouls.

“They may have the best frontcourt, when you look at the four and the five, in the league,” Oats said. “And we didn’t do a very good job with it. And part of it is we started small, and they punished us. We’ve got to have a better answer for it if we’re going to continue to start small like that.”

Alabama and Auburn split the regular-season series, with the Tide taking the first meeting, 79-75, in Tuscaloosa last month. But Broome saw success in both games. The 6-foot-10 forward scored a combined 49 points and 21 rebounds, and in both outings, he had 20-plus points and five blocks. No other SEC player has a 20-point, 5-block game this year.

Like it had the previous three games, Alabama deployed a smaller lineup with Grant Nelson at the five and four guards rounding out the rest of the starting five. Nelson fouled out of the game with 6:05 left to play, but with its smaller lineup, that left Rylan Griffen, who is listed at 6-foot-6, 195 pounds, guarding Williams, who is two inches taller and 55 pounds heavier.

The Tide do go bigger throughout the game with freshmen Jarin Stevenson and Mo Dioubate playing minutes at the four and three, respectively. Mo Wague only logged two minutes as he continues to deal with a nagging foot injury, but Nick Pringle returned to action following a two-game suspension. Even that, however, didn’t slow down the Tigers’ frontcourt.

“We were probably better on Williams when we did that, but even some of our big guys got posted and scored on,” Oats said. “Maybe going small got him going and then he just had his confidence going. For Williams to score 26 and only hit one three, he did a lot of damage at the free-throw line and in the paint. We didn’t really debate starting bigger, but we definitely went bigger at times in the game and it didn’t do much.”

Alabama (16-7, 8-2 SEC) has clearly missed center Charles Bediako, who turned pro after the 2022-23 campaign but is currently a free agent, this year. A lack of a consistent post presence to protect the rim and attack the offensive and defensive glass has plagued the Tide in all of its defeats this season. It proved to be an issue once again at Auburn on Wednesday.

Is there cause for concern for Oats as Alabama looks to bounce back after its latest loss?

“We’ve had issues with frontcourt guys all year, to be honest with you,” Oats said. “We had that stretch of three games with (Zach) Edey and (Oumar) Ballo and (Ryan) Kalkbrenner, and we didn’t do a very good job on, for sure, Edey and Ballo. We fouled too much. We were not in position. We let it get in too easy. We get ducked in too easy. 

“I thought Grant did a really good job on Tolu Smith. That’s probably the one game I can remember off the top of my head that we’ve played a legitimate post-up big that we’ve done a decent job on. Other than that, we haven’t. We tried to double at times, and different doubles, we gave up threes. But yeah, it’s an issue. We’ve got to get better inside.”

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