Alabama struggles in Nashville, loses to Florida in SEC Tournament

Alabama‘s chances of getting a third SEC Tournament title in five seasons under coach Nate Oats have come to an end on Friday night in Nashville. Despite establishing a solid lead early in the game, the Crimson Tide were unable to sustain momentum and ultimately lost 102-88 to Florida in the quarterfinals. That means their record now sits at 21-11 (13-5 SEC), which includes a 2-4 record over their last six games.

How It Happened

Alabama got off to a hot start in this one with an 8-0 run in the first two minutes of the game. From there, it was pretty much all Florida, as the Gators outscored the Tide 48-25 over the remaining 18 minutes of the first half to take a commanding 48-33 into halftime. UA really needed to begin the second half hot too, but UF scored six of the first eight points to give itself a whopping 21-point lead.

At one point, Alabama did go on a 15-6 run to cut the deficit to 15 points — and even cut Florida’s lead to 12 — but there just weren’t enough stops on defense to get anything going and the offense couldn’t knock down shots consistently. That’s not a great recipe for success, especially against a team like Florida. Obviously, Florida’s length on defense gave Alabama fits, which is something that we had also seen in Gainesville a couple of weeks ago.

The result? Another double-digit loss. Of Alabama’s 11 losses this season, seven of them have been by double digits with six being by 13 points or more.

Players of the Game

The choices are difficult from this one.

Sure, veteran guard Mark Sears scored another 22 points — which is right on pace with his season average (21.1) — but he finished 0-for-4 from deep, couldn’t convert his first two free throws during a period when Alabama was trying to keep things from getting away from them in the first half and also turned it over four times.

Give Nick Pringle credit for getting a double-double for a second consecutive game. After scoring 10 points and bringing in 10 rebounds against Arkansas last Saturday, the senior big added 12 points and 10 more rebounds to his season totals on Friday night. Unfortunately, the season-long struggles from the free-throw line continued, as he only converted 50% of his eight attempts. He has posted double-digit points in seven-straight games though, dating back to playing Florida the first time on Feb. 21.

Key Stats

Whether it be from the three-point line or the free-throw line, Alabama just can’t make shots right now. As a team, they only managed six threes on 25 attempts (24%) while only hitting 69.6% of the 23 free-throw attempts. Obviously, Pringle is a big source of that free-throw percentage, but Aaron Estrada was 1-for-2 while Sears missed his first two attempts.

Not only that, but the trio of guards — Sears, Latrell Wrightsell Jr. and Rylan Griffen — converted only 1-of-13 three-point tries. For those of you who don’t want to do the math, that’s 7.7%. This has been a major issue for Alabama over the last three or so weeks. In fact, it seemed to all begin with the struggles against Florida in that first matchup in late February.

With Alabama having such poor defensive efficiency, the offense has to compensate. Unfortunately, the guys have been unable to do much of that lately, which has created some ugly losses — and even a couple of ugly wins too. We’ll see if they’re able to get back on track the next time out, which will be next week.

What’s Next

Now, we wait. There’s still a lot of conference tournament play taking place this weekend before we find out Alabama’s seeding — and opponent — in the NCAA Tournament. Selection Sunday will take place on Sunday afternoon with the First Four games beginning next Tuesday. The Crimson Tide will either play its opening game on Thursday or Friday though.

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