Alabama basketball team finishes strong to beat Drake in Orlando

Alabama Basketball needed a win back after losing to Iona on Thanksgiving. Tide gets what it takes, knocking out Drake Bulldogs 80-71. Call it that – Team Nate Oats won ugly. An effort by the blues fan resulted in a late push, turning a tight match into an easy win.

It is anything but easy. Crimson Tide Head Coach, Nate Oats in short it’s good.

I’m really proud of our boys. We failed to take another free-kick, hit three bad shots, overturned too much and still found a way to win by nine points against a quality team.

Yes, Drake is a quality team and victory will be very promising in March. Take part in the contest, Ken Pomeroy had Crimson Tide in 23rd and Drake in 57th. Drake became the team to win 20 games at the NCAA Tournament.

Alabama certainly made the game more difficult. Weak again fouled (59%) and fouled from outside the box (26%), Tide was forced to close strongly to win. Taking a four-point lead with less than nine minutes to go and drawing at 5:47, Alabama took control to take the lead with 10 points at 2:10.

In the second half of the game, the Crimson Tide shoots 60.7% after shooting 48.3% in the first half. The Crimson Tide made seven of the last 10 throws from the floor, plus six free throws in the final three minutes of the game.

Alabama basketball starter Juwan Gary

The glue that holds the Crimson Tide together is Juwan Gary. In the first game of the season, Gary scored 14 points from just 9 goals. More importantly, Gary led Tide with 10 rebounds, including four counterattacks.

The top scorer for Nate Oats is Jahvon Quinerly with 18 points. Jaden Shackelford has 14 points, Keon Ellis has nine, Noah Gurley has eight and JD Davison has seven. Ellis was the second-placed recoverer with six pounds.

Comments on victory, Nate Oats says,

We had a long discussion as a team after the game (Iona) about playing properly, what we talked about during the season, and what we had to do to fix some of the issues. I think we tried a lot today.

Sometimes really trying is enough. After Sunday’s game against Miami, the next three games will require more than trying really hard. After the victory, Tide rose to 22nd place in KenPom Leaderboard. In the next 4 matches, Tide ranked teams No. 1 (Gonzaga), No. 5 (Houston) and No. 11 (Memphis) respectively on the Pomeroy rankings.

Alabama Basketball is 5-1 and next will play the Miami Hurricanes 4-2 at 5:30 p.m. CST Sunday afternoon.