No. 3 Alabama survived a late scare from Arkansas Saturday night as the Crimson Tide held on to beat the Razorbacks 85-81.
Alabama and Arkansas went neck and neck in the first half, with Alabama taking a six-point lead into the locker room. In the second half, Alabama seemed like it was going to come away with a runaway victory in the second half, but Arkansas came roaring back.
The Crimson Tide came out of the locker room outsourcing Arkansas 22-10 with the help of Alabama forward Grant Nelson and guard Chris Youngblood. The two helped build up a 18-point lead and Alabama seemed to be cruising to a large victory.
Arkansas did not quit though. With Alabama leading 75-57 with 6:30 remaining, Arkansas went on a 19-4 run to bring the Crimson Tide lead down to just three points. Nelson hit a jump shot with 57 seconds left to push the lead back up to two possessions, then Youngblood hit two free throws to ice the game and give Alabama its sixth consecutive victory.
“This was a big road win. This team has been playing well, but we got to do a better job of closing,” Alabama head coach Nate Oats said.
Both Youngblood and Nelson led the way on the offensive end for Alabama with 15 points each. Nelson shot 5-for-7 on the night and converted on five of his six free throw attempts while Youngblood went 5-for-9 from the field, including sinking two threes. As an offense, Alabama shot 55% in the game, but made just five 3-pointers out of its 19 attempts.
Defensively, Alabama struggled to contain Arkansas center Zvonimir Ivisic and forward Adou Thiero. Ivisic stretched the Crimson Tide defense out, sinking five of his nine shots from beyond the arc. Ivisic finished the game with 27 points, shooting 10-for-18 overall and grabbing seven rebounds. Thiero attacked the Alabama defense in the paint, scoring 22 points on 8-for-14 shooting.
“We didn’t do a very good job on big Z [Ivisic], he killed us tonight. I thought we had a decent game plan for him, but he made some tough shots.” Oats said. “Thiero was very aggressive tonight, too. He kind of bullied some of our guys.”
The turnover bug got to Alabama again on Saturday. In the first half, the Crimson Tide turned over the ball nine times compared to just three turnovers for Arkansas. The issue slightly improved in the second half however, as Alabama committed just five turnovers. The Crimson Tide entered Saturday dead last in the SEC and 327th overall in turnover margin at -2.8 per game. Alabama’s defense did a good job of limiting Arkansas’s ability to capitalize on the Crimson Tide’s mistakes. Despite losing the turnover battle, Alabama still outscored Arkansas 15-13 in points off turnovers.
Saturday’s win comes on the same day that the top two AP ranked teams lost. No. 1 Auburn was taken down at home by No. 6 Florida 90-81. Later in the day, No. 2 Duke was stunned on the road at Clemson. While the Crimson Tide is the presumed team to take over the top spot in the new rankings, Oats does not put any thought into where Alabama is ranked.
“I don’t really care to be honest with you, so I’m not going to make a pitch on why we should be first,” Oats said. “We’ll be one, two or three that is for sure. I don’t really care, let’s focus on Texas now.”
Up next, Alabama will travel to Austin Tuesday night for another quadrant 1 opportunity as the Crimson Tide take on the Longhorns of Texas. Alabama and Texas will tip off at 8 p.m. CT.
