Alabama Gives Up 'Embarrassing' Rebounding Numbers in Loss to Purdue

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — No. 8 Alabama men's basketball fell to No. 2 Purdue 87-80 on Thursday night.

While the margin on the scoreboard was close, and it was a tight race throughout, the same could not be said about the rebounds battle. Purdue had a 10-2 lead on the offensive boards in the first half, including a 25-11 total rebounds tally in the initial 20 minutes.

The Boilermakers finished the game with 19 offensive rebounds compared to Alabama's seven, and 52 total boards to the Crimson Tide's 28. This 24-rebound difference is the second-largest negative margin of the Nate Oats era and worst since 2019, when Alabama was outrebounded by North Carolina by 29.

"At the end of the day, the tougher team won tonight," Oats said during the postgame press conference. "They outrebounded us by 24. That's embarrassing. In life and sports, the team that plays harder, people that work harder, and whatever field you're in, should win. And they won. They deserved to win.

"They were tougher, I guess they prepared better coming into the game than we did, and we're going to have to fix some stuff. I mean, their offensive rebounding rate was 48 percent, that could lead the country in a year. We've got major problems on the backboard. You know, they're starting front court at 24 rebounds, our starting front court at six. So that's a problem."

Alabama is only three games into the season and has plenty of time to fix the rebounding issues. So, what would that process of improvement look like?

"I think that's got to be a player-led deal," Oats said. "I mean, as coaches, we've been doing a lot of rebounding stations, rebounding drills in practice. At the end of the day, we would give our players a quote that Charles Barkley said about positioning, all this on rebounds. At the end of day, it's about desire. Like you either want the ball or you don't.

"Those guys got a desire to go get the ball. They obviously got some technique. They know how to wedge in. They know all this. But like, at the end of the day, if you got the size and athleticism and you want to go get a rebound, you're going to go get a rebound. We're gonna have to determine whether we want to be the tougher team. Because I think the tougher team usually wins and the tougher team won tonight, for sure."

Oats continued to admit that "we've got issues on the glass," and it showed in the scrimmages. Alabama's non-conference schedule is an absolute gauntlet that's filled with ranked opponents. Rebounding will need to be fixed well before SEC play.

"Until we figure out how to make tougher plays, rebound the basketball at a much higher level, we're going to have a hard time beating the best teams in the country," Oats said. "And I think it showed tonight.

"We've been sounding the alarm on the rebounding deal. It got exposed tonight. Our guys are going to have to decide whether they want to have a good season or whether they're just gonna out toughed every game the rest of the year."

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