Live Updates: Tide Tipoff at Foster Auditorium
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Foster Auditorium opens its doors to Crimson Tide fans tonight as both the men's and women's Alabama basketball teams take part in a preseason event.
On tonight's agenda is a dunk contest, three-point contest, skills competitions and Nate Oats and Kristy Curry addressing the crown before each team officially kicks off its season November 9.
Doors opened at 6:30 CT with all the action beginning at 7:30 upon player and team introductions.
Senior forward Keon Ellis, guard JD Davison, and forwards Juwan Gary and Darius Miles are the participants for the dunk contest.
It's 7:20 p.m., and the clock to countdown shows nine minutes until Tide fans get a first look at the men's and women's teams for 2021-22.
Foster sits about three thousand people, and eight minutes prior to Tipoff seats are slowly filling in the upper sections.
Player introductions were just made for both the men's and women's, and we're about ready to get underway.
Three-point contest:
First up is the three-point contest. Hannah Barber and Jahvon Quinerly are up now representing team one. For team two, Nia Daniel and Jaden Shackelford go next. Team three is Brittany Davis and Jusaun Holt, meanwhile, with Keon Ellis and Megan Abrams representing team four.
We'll soon see which sides move on to the final round.
After the first round, teams one and two, Barber and Quinerly and Daniel and Shackelford battle it out for the three-point contest finals.
Team two takes home the title with a total score of 20, beating Quinerly and Barber, both shown in the video below, by four points.
Curry addresses the crowd:
Women's coach Kristy Curry speaks to the crowd now, and the first thing she says is that the team is longer with more depth and size in the front court.
When asked about any particular matchups at home worth watching in-person, Curry says, "All of them."
Skills contest:
Split among the men's and women's, players are taking part in a skills contest which includes dribbling around obstacles, passing into a net, then dribbling back down the court for a three-point shot or dunk.
It's down to two teams. Barber and Kayla Blackshear go first, followed by Noah Gurly and Delaney Heard.
Team one, led by Barber, takes home the skills competition.
Dunk contest:
With the dunk contest soon to begin, celebrity judges are being introduced. The first two are meteorologist James Spann and former women's great Jasmine Walker of the Los Angeles Sparks.
Looks like Darius Miles will go first.
Each contestant will have two attempts to advance to the next round.
Scores from the first two rounds are being calculated now, with the top two scorers moving on. Below is a video of Davison's third attempt, and first in the second round. The crowd was enjoying the freshman point guard.
Ellis and Davison advance to the championship, with the same rules applying. Davison's championship round came up empty in his 45 seconds, and Ellis wins the contest after finishing a tomahawk-style dunk to secure it.
Oats addresses the crowd:
One of the first points he makes is how difficult the Crimson Tide's non-conference schedule is this season. Alabama plays three of the four teams that made the Final Four in the 2021 NCAA Tournament, with Gonzaga, Baylor and Houston all awaiting.
Oats mentions the freshman class, Charles Bediako, Jusaun Holt and JD Davison as all coming along nicely in preseason practice.
The Alabama coach was the last feature of the night, with Tide Tipoff ending promptly after he finished speaking.
