Alabama drops back-to-back SEC games for first time this season

The Alabama men’s basketball team is struggling right now. There’s no other way to put it. Granted, the competition has been stout the entire season, but after dropping a 105-87 road loss to Florida on Tuesday night, the Crimson Tide have now lost back-to-back SEC games for the first time this year. The loss moves the team’s record to 20-10 (12-5 SEC).

How It Happened

Alabama’s offense never really got things going consistently in Gainesville. From the jump, the Crimson Tide had little to no rhythm, as they had only scored 12 points through the first 10.5 minutes of the contest. The defense was able to keep them in it early though, as Florida only had 15 points during that same span. But by the time the offense started scoring points, the defense wasn’t able to keep the Gators from doing the same — but at an even higher rate.

Alabama got down by as many as 11 points in the first half while trailing by nine (44-35) at halftime. To make matters worse, UF then proceeded to outscore the Tide 26-16 through the first 9.5 minutes of the second half, which gave the Gators a commanding 20-point lead with a hostile home crowd at their backs. There was never a moment where you felt like the Crimson Tide was feeling itself on both ends of the court. The offense struggled for most of the game while the defense was unable to sustain its early success.

The result? Another blowout SEC loss on the road, which has now happened in four of the last six of those games. In fact, here are the SEC road losses this season: 20-point loss at Tennessee, 18-point loss at Auburn, 22-point loss at Kentucky and an 18-point loss at Florida. What’s worse is that Rylan Griffen was forced to leave the game prematurely due to a lower-body injury. We should know more on the guard’s status once Nate Oats addresses the media.

Players of the Game

The only player worth mentioning — at least from Alabama’s side — is Mark Sears. The veteran guard struggled on the offensive end to start the game, scoring zero points through the first 16 minutes. And yet he still managed to somehow put up 33 points while hitting 4-of-6 from three-point range and all nine free throw attempts. It was his first 30-point performance since the South Carolina game back on Jan. 9. It was also his second-highest scoring output this season, only trailing the 35 points he had against Purdue in early December.

Unfortunately, Sears didn’t contribute much else. He got his first rebound with just under a minute and half left in the game while having zero assists and only one steal. Aaron Estrada continued to put up a lot of counting statistics (17 points, five rebounds, three assists and two steals), but he hardly looked like the force that we have seen from him at times this season. Overall, this was a rough outing for almost everyone involved, so it’s hard to pin anything on any one player.

Key Stats

Florida did a much better job of converting turnovers into points. When you look at the box score, Alabama had 13 turnovers to Florida’s nine, but the Gators scored 17 points off of turnovers while the Tide only put up seven. Plus, UF managed to get to the free throw line at almost twice the rate as UA (46 free throw attempts for the Gators compared to 25 for Alabama). Now throw in that Florida was better from beyond the arc (36.8% to just 21.7% for UA), and it’s easy to see how things got out of hand.

After making just nine three-point attempts against Tennessee on Saturday (at a 24.3% rate), Alabama’s total was almost cut in half from that total with just five made three-pointers. This means that over the last two games, the Tide is shooting just 23.3% from deep. That’s not going to get it done against some of the top teams in the SEC. And after averaging 101 points over a five-game stretch, UA has averaged just 80.5 points over its last two games.

What’s Next

Alabama only has one regular season game left, and it’ll be against Arkansas (14-15, 5-11 SEC) on Saturday. Fortunately, this one will be back inside Coleman Coliseum against a struggling Razorbacks squad that’s taken a step back this season after a couple of strong years under Eric Musselman. Still, UA has a lot to figure out, whether it be offensively or defensively. Tipoff for that game is set for 11 a.m. CT (noon ET), and it will air on ESPN.

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