Nate Oats Updates Alabama Basketball's Availability Ahead of St. John's Game

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- No. 15 Alabama basketball has its first major test of the 2025-26 season on Saturday when the program squares off against No. 5 St. John's in Madison Square Garden. The Crimson Tide got its season off to a strong start on Monday with a 91-62 victory over North Dakota, but did so without multiple scholarship players.

Alabama played without Jalil Bethea, who suffered a preseason foot injury, but was also without Latrell Wrightsell, Aden Holloway, and Keitenn Bristow as they each worked through minor injuries. Head coach Nate Oats offered an optimistic update ahead of the matchup against the Red Storm.

Why Aden Holloway, Two More Players Are Out for North Dakota Season Opener

"Looks very doubtful that Keitenn [Bristow] will play tomorrow," Oats said on Friday. "We'll see what he's like next week, but he didn't even participate in practice today. [Latrell] Wrightsell and [Aden] Holloway both participated in practice. We didn't go hard today, but we went and they did what we did, so provided they look good tomorrow morning after they went through practice today, hopefully they can both play. We're hopeful on those two, likely that they play, highly doubtful, it doesn't look like Keitenn will play."

The injuries have impacted the program's practice habits as the Crimson Tide has only had nine scholarship athletes available over the last week.

"We haven't gone real hard, just because of the injuries, like we don't even have ten scholarship players to play against each other," Oats said. "It's not just Kietenn [Bristow], [Latrell] Wrightsell, [Aden] Holloway, obviously Jalil's [Bethea] been out a while, Preson's [Murphy Jr.] been out with a concussion. So we're down numbers. We haven't gone as hard as we normally would in practice."

Murphy Jr. wasn't seen on the bench on Monday as he's nursed the concussion, leaving the majority of the ball handling duties to star sophomore Labaron Philon, graduate Houston Mallette and the three freshman.

Alabama Basketball 2025-26 Schedule

Nov. 3: vs. North Dakota
Nov. 8: at St. John’s
Nov. 13: vs. Purdue
Nov. 19: at Illinois (in Chicago)
Nov. 24: vs. Gonzaga (Players Era Festival in Las Vegas)
Nov. 25: vs. UNLV (Players Era Festival in Las Vegas)
Nov. 26/27: Third game of Players Era Festival vs. opponent to be determined
Dec. 3: vs. Clemson (SEC/ACC Challenge)
Dec. 7: vs. UTSA
Dec. 13: vs. Arizona (in Birmingham for C.M. Newton Classic)
Dec. 17: vs. South Florida
Dec. 21: vs. Kennesaw State (in Huntsville)
Dec. 29: vs. Yale
Jan. 3: vs. Kentucky
Jan. 6/7: at Vanderbilt
Jan. 10: vs. Texas
Jan. 13/14: at Mississippi State
Jan. 17: at Oklahoma
Jan. 24: vs. Tennessee
Jan. 27/28: vs. Missouri
Feb. 1: at Florida
Feb. 3: vs. Texas A&M
Feb. 7: at Auburn
Feb. 10/11: at Ole Miss
Feb. 14: vs. South Carolina
Feb. 17/18: vs. Arkansas
Feb. 21: at LSU
Feb. 24/25: vs. Mississippi State
Feb. 28: at Tennessee
March 3/4 at Georgia
March 7: vs. Auburn