Alabama Basketball Passes First SEC Road Test with 83-70 win at Florida
Things are never easy on the road in the SEC.
Last time Alabama played in Gainesville, the Crimson Tide blew a 21-point second-half lead and lost in double overtime. That was Nate Oats' first season as head coach, and he wanted to make sure that didn't happen again on Wednesday night.
"It started going through my head when they cut it to four or five there," Oats said. "We needed to get some stops, and we made some timely baskets there when they cut it too, and we got some stops."
Despite some hot second-half shooting from Florida, the Alabama defensive effort and an offensive outburst from Juwan Gary was enough to hold off the Gator comeback attempt in the 83-70 win in Gainesville for No. 15 Alabama. The Crimson Tide improves to 2-0 in SEC play and 11-3 overall.
It was almost like a switch was flipped for Alabama at halftime. The Crimson Tide came out of the locker room on fire, opening the second half on a 22-4 run to go up 58-43.
Oats called it maybe the best half they've played defensively all season. Alabama forced 12 turnovers in the second half and 20 total in the game, which was a season high for the Gators.
"The emphasis at halftime was, we just have to play harder," said forward Charles Bediako. "He just basically said we have to rebound the ball, play harder, get deflections, get steals and the bench give us energy. And I think that was the biggest thing when we came in the game, we just came out with a lot of energy from everybody on the court and on the bench. We got our deflections, steals, rebounding, so that was the biggest change."
Bediako finished with 11 points and seven rebounds, six of which came on the offensive end. The freshman forward seemed to have a connection going with fellow freshman guard JD Davison, who finished with four assists. Gary was able to connect with Jahvon Quinerly several times as the point guard finished with five assists.
Both Bediako and Gary said the strong connection they have with the guards in practice translated into the game on Wednesday night. The guards make the game easier for the bigs.
"JQ and JD did a really good job finding guys, and the ball moved a lot better in the second half when we were playing off our stops," Oats said.
Florida slowly climbed back into the game with some three-pointers from Alabama-native Myreon Jones and a strong prescence in the paint from forward Colin Castleton. After trailing by as much as 15 in the half, a Castleton free throw cut the Alabama lead to five points at 66-61 with just over six minutes left.
The Alabama defense then turned up the pressure, forcing a couple of turnovers that turned into transition buckets on the other end as Alabama was able to put the game away.
"Even though people look at us as not a good defensive team, we just had to go out there in the second half and show that we can really turn people over, push the tempo on offense, get stops and get rebounds," Gary said.
The first half was a sloppy affair for both teams, filled with turnovers and fouls galore. Alabama had multiple scoring droughts in the first half, yet only trailed by three heading into halftime with the Gators holding a 39-36 lead.
Gallery: No. 15 Alabama basketball at Florida
Photos courtesy of Alabama Athletics
Quinerly was the early star of the first half, while Gary had a strong finish to the half and helped pull Alabama out of a shooting slump with some powerful drives to the basket.
Despite foul trouble, Alabama had five players finish in double figures with Quinerly and Gary leading the way with 19 points each.
Alabama now moves on to another conference road trip to Missouri on Saturday at 2:30 p.m.
"When our defensive effort picks up, our offense usually comes around, and that’s what happened tonight," Oats said. "We haven’t shot it particularly great really for a while, maybe since the Gonzaga game, but we’ve played hard enough to get two big SEC games here to start the year.”
