Alabama Basketball Takes Hard Fall Against Stanford, 82-64
While Alabama basketball's defense and rebounding in its season-opener last Wednesday caused a lot of excitement, the same could not be said for the Crimson Tide's performance against Stanford in the opening round of the 2020 Maui Invitational on Monday night in Asheville, N.C.
The Crimson Tide was dismantled by the Cardinal, falling 82-64.
"They played harder than we did," Alabama coach Nate Oats said after the game. "It's on us to get our guys to come out and play better. They out-rebounded us by 16 which doesn't bode well.
"They're a good team but we've got to play better than that."
Sloppy play off the boards and an overall poor defensive effort were the keys to the game for Alabama, with the Cardinal outperforming the Crimson Tide in nearly every category.
In rebounding, the Cardinal led 47-31, dominating the boards and not allowing Alabama many second-chance opportunities on offense. Alabama surrendered 15 turnovers on the night, resulting in 14 points for Stanford.
"We've got get much better effort on the offensive boards," Oats said. "We've got to get much better effort on the defensive glass. To get out-rebounded by 16 I think that's one of your big effort stats. Like, we've got to give better effort.
"To me the most disappointing thing was our rebounding."
On offense, the Crimson Tide shot just 36 percent from the floor and 24 percent from beyond the three-point line.
After keeping things relatively tight for the first 15 minutes of the game, Stanford opened up a 41-29 lead at halftime thanks to a 9-0 run powered by five points from freshman forward Ziaire Williams.
The Cardinal kept up the momentum in the second half, starting a 10-0 run at 15:02 left that ended up increasing Stanford's lead to 17.
Another 8-0 run with under eight minutes remaining would seal the deal for the Cardinal, putting the Crimson Tide's hopes at a comeback to rest.
"We got to bring more effort at the beginning of the game," Oats said. "We were in the game for the first 16 minutes. They close the first half on a run and I didn't think we had a bad lineup at the end of the first half. We came out in the second half, cut it to 16 then right after that first media timeout it went from seven to 12 in about 30 seconds it felt like and we just never got back."
Alabama had two double-digit shooters on the night in sophomore guards Jahvon Quinerly and Jaden Shackelford with each scoring 14 and 10, respectively. Senior guard John Petty Jr. led the team in rebounds with six.
For Stanford, Williams flew onto the scene in his first career college contest, scoring 19 points and recording eight rebounds. In total, the Cardinal had four double-digit shooters, let by Williams.
Alabama moves to 1-1 on the season and will face UNLV in the second round of the Maui Invitational on Tuesday (8:30 p.m. CT, ESPN 2). Stanford will play North Carolina, also on Tuesday (3 p.m. CT, ESPN 2).
"Really disappointed in our play," Oats said. "We got to come back, try to salvage this thing, play a lot better tomorrow night and see if we can't figure out some guys that [are] gonna mesh, play a little bit better together and rebound the basketball."
This story will be updated with video once it is distributed.
