Nate Oats Laments Alabama's Rebounding in Loss to Gonzaga

The beginning of Alabama men's basketball's trip to the 2025 Players Era Festival in Las Vegas resulted in the second loss to Gonzaga for the Crimson Tide program in three total games played between the schools. The No. 12 Bulldogs (6-0) outrebounded No. 8 Alabama 48-36 and notched a 95-85 win on Monday night.

"Obviously, one of the better programs in the country over the last 15, 20 years, and they figure out a way to win games, and they're doing it on the O-boards," Crimson Tide coach Nate Oats said. "We gave up 25 second-chance points. It's hard to win doing that."

Twenty of the rebounds given up by the Crimson Tide (3-2) were on the offensive glass. Point guard Labaron Philon had 29 points, but no rebounds. Oats has previously discussed the need for Alabama's guards to get involved in rebounding, and he brought it up again after the game on Monday, but he placed responsibility for the larger issue on every position group. The Crimson Tide will be without guard Latrell Wrightsell Jr. for the duration of its time in Las Vegas.

That's one less guard with the ability to get on the floor and crash the boards in Sin City, which places greater importance on the others. Oats was critical of Philon's lack of rebounds in the game, as well as the six turnovers he gave up.

"We've kinda shown that we're not really locked into taking care of the defensive glass," Oats said. "We're susceptible to that... It's everybody. Everybody's gotta contribute, and we're not a very tough, physical rebounding team right now. Until we get that way, we're gonna have a hard time consistently beating the best teams in the country."

Gonzaga was only up four in the rebounding category at halftime, 22 to 18, and took a 45-24 advantage into the locker room. Braden Huff, Tyan Grant-Foster and Graham Ike combined for 26 rebounds between the three of them. Grant-Foster had five offensive rebounds to go with 21 points. Oats and his staff showed Crimson Tide players film of Grant-Foster's offensive rebounding acumen.

"We did a pretty good job on Ike to start the game out with. I thought Aden [Holloway] did a really good job on him, and he ends up with 21 [points] and 11 [rebounds]," Oats said.

Tarleton State transfer forward Keitenn Bristow, who led the Crimson Tide with 11 boards against the Bulldogs, has 19 rebounds through his first two games. The sophomore's return to the floor has brought a boost to the team's rebounding, but on Monday, he largely lacked help in that department from any one individual. Aiden Sherrell had six, but no one else reached five, including freshman Amari Allen (who has two 10-plus rebound games in 2025: at St. John's and against Illinois).

It was a better showing than Nov. 13, when Alabama lost the rebounding battle to then-No. 2 Purdue 52-28 on home floor, but that game featured a slimmer margin in the final score, and the exact same result: a loss for the Crimson Tide against one of the nation's top teams.

"We're gonna keep harping on it," Oats said. "We're gonna be one of the better teams in the country, but we're not gonna be able to consistently beat these good teams if we can't consistently rebound it better than we are right now."

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