Alabama Pulls Off Second Straight Road Rescue Mission in Win Over Oklahoma

Alabama basketball's 83-81 road win over Oklahoma on Saturday couldn't have started much more evenly.

At the under-12 media timeout, the game was tied at 21. At the under-8 and under-4 breaks, it was gridlocked at 28 and then 33. But the Sooners found a way to end the first half on an 11-0 run, and things looked grim for the Crimson Tide.

Alabama forward Aiden Sherrell tallied a career-high 22 points on Tuesday against Mississippi State, and within the first eight minutes of the second half against Oklahoma, he was already up to 19. 12 of the Tide's 24 points in that time frame came from Sherrell, as he was the clear-cut leader in this comeback stretch.

"He's come on great," Alabama head coach Nate Oats said of Sherrell after the game. "He wasn't really a rim protector for us last year. He only had one blocked shot today, but our team as a whole didn't have a ton of blocked shots. Some of that was maybe how Oklahoma plays, but he won our Hard Hat. He had the most blue-collar points today. I thought he was pretty good. He's been really good running the interior of our defense, rebounding the ball.

"It's kind of like, at the end, do we take him out? Do we leave him in? Do we take him out to switch, but we need to rebound? So, we kind of leave him in to grab rebounds Our defense was 64 points per 100 possessions better with him on the floor. So that'll tell you what he means to our defense. Our offense was 19 points better with him on the floor. He impacts the game on both sides of the floor really well.

"And again, he didn't have as many blocks, but this was a team in Oklahoma that settled for a lot more midrange pull-ups and perimeter shots. ... Maybe his presence in there deterred them from driving in that far. I don't know, but he's been great for us, and he's got back-to-back, 20-point games. First time in his career he's had it."

From that point on and up until the final whistle, neither team had more than a four-point lead. The Crimson Tide had multiple players keep this one close during the unofficial fourth quarter in Norman, Okla., but it was the sophomore superstar who took over.

There have been several games this season where Alabama guard Labaron Philon Jr. had the majority of the Crimson Tide's points late in the second half, and Saturday absolutely added to that case. But Philon didn't have a great start, as he shot 2 of 9 in the first period and was 3 of 8 from the free-throw line with roughly 10 minutes to go in regulation.

Philon finished with 23 points, including 17 in the second half alone. It was Philon's 12th 20-point game of the season, as his scoring ability has become more apparent as the season has moved along.

"I mean, he's made big shots," Oats said. "He's played well down the stretch. Go back to that Illinois game up in Chicago when they couldn't really guard him late. The thing with him is he's shooting it a lot better than he was. So they've got to honor him from the three. He's a physical driver. He's quick, he's shifty. He can get in the paint. He's got all the shot fakes when he can get in the paint, get you up. He was crafty on the three-point play.

"You can switch him. You can blitz him. He's good at getting the ball out of his hands. You can decide what you want to do — you could switch him, drop him. If he's in a drop, he's pretty good at shooting those paint floaters. So, it's hard to figure out how to guard him in ball screens, and I think he plays pretty well in space. He hit those two big threes.

"I mean, to me, he's a gamer. Obviously, he's got to make his free throws, and he's as upset as anybody with it, because he's a competitor. So I'm sure he'll be in the gym quite a bit over this next week."

Alabama Pulls Off Second Straight Road Rescue Mission in Win Over Oklahoma

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