Alabama Basketball Can't Maintain Hot Shooting in 90-81 Loss at No. 4 Kentucky

Alabama basketball channeled the lyrics to the chorus of Katy Perry's hit 2008 song "Hot N Cold" in Rupp Arena Saturday afternoon. It went from hot to cold, yes to no, in to out, up and then down for the Crimson Tide against the Wildcats.

Despite a red hot shooting start from three, a scoring drought at the end of the first half and poor defense doomed No. 24 Alabama in the 90-81 loss at No. 4 Kentucky.

"A real disappointing loss," Alabama head coach Nate Oats said int he postgame. "We wasted a good shooting night out of [Jaden] Shack[elford] and Keon [Ellis]. Those two guys combined to go 12-23 from three, and we kind of wasted it."

Early on, it looked like it was going to be one of those can't-miss type of days for the Crimson Tide and the senior guard Ellis. The Crimson Tide opened the game 9-12 from three with Ellis going 5-5 himself.

Alabama led by as much as 13 in the first half, and a Jahvon Quinerly layup gave the Tide a 46-34 lead with 3:29 to go in the first. The Wildcats closed the half on a 13-0 run capped by a 3-pointer from Kellan Grady to take their first lead of the game at 47-46.

A real turning point in the game happened with less than five minutes to go in the first half. Holding a 10-point lead, Darius Miles was called for a technical foul after a lengthy review. Jaden Shackelford hit three free throws shortly after to put Alabama up 46-34, but those would be the last points of the half for the Crimson Tide as the offense went ice cold after the review.

"It was real poor timing," Oats said. "They outscored us 16-5 to close out the half I believe after his flagrant. So we've got to be smarter than that."

Alabama went on a mini 8-0 run early in the second half to retake the lead at 56-54 on a 3-pointer from Shackelford, but the Wildcats responded with a 20-2 run to go up 74-57, and Alabama could never get the deficit smaller than seven from that point on.

Missing two starting guards in TyTy Washington and Sahvir Wheeler, Grady more than picked up the slack for Kentucky. He had 25 points on 7-9 shooting from beyond the arc. Oscar Tshiebwe also presented major problems for Alabama on the boards and had 21 points and 14 rebounds.

"They played the whole game without a point guard, and we only turned them over seven times," Oats said. "We didn't play hard enough on the ball. We didn't play hard enough to win a tough road game. We had a great chance to win with Wheeler and Washington out. We wasted a good opportunity and a good shooting night."

After starting 9-12 from three, Alabama would miss its next 10 shots behind the arc and finished 14-40. Even when Alabama was making shots at a high rate in the first half, the lack of aggressiveness on defense kept the Wildcats in the game.

In the previous matchup with Kentucky on Feb. 5, Oats was pleased with the defensive effort from his team despite the 66-55 loss. It was not so on Saturday. The Wildcats shot 53 percent from the floor and 64 percent from three on 9-14 shooting.

"We kept telling them in the hot start that our defense wasn't going to be good enough to win the game, and that's what ended up happening," Oats said.

Ellis was the bright spot in the game for the Crimson Tide offensively. He finished with a career high 28 points. Shackelford added 18 points, and Noah Gurley had 12. After going scoreless on Wednesday against Mississippi State, Oats said he showed Ellis a highlight reel of his own plays to show him what they wanted him to get back to, and that it was great to see Ellis find his groove again on Saturday.

With the loss Alabama falls to 17-10 (7-7 SEC). Prior to the game, the NCAA tournament committee revealed that Alabama was being considered for a No. 4 seed in the tournament. While the loss is disappointing for the Crimson Tide, losing to the No. 4 team on the road does not greatly affect its standing for the NCAA tournament.

Alabama has four games left on the regular season schedule with two at home and two on the road at Vanderbilt and LSU. Oats said they will have to play with better defensive effort on the road, or his team will lose those games.

"Guys gotta figure out how hard they need to play to win these road games because we've got two more road games left this year, and we need to win them," Oats said. "So we've got to figure out how to play a lot better on the road."