No. 2 Alabama Basketball Survives No. 15 Robert Morris to Advance to Round of 32

CLEVELAND— Robert Morris brought a frenzied crowd to Rocket Arena for Friday's Round of 64 game against No. 2-seed Alabama. It wasn't enough to spring a 15-over-2 upset, and the Crimson Tide pulled away late to win 90-81 and move to the Round of 32 for a third consecutive season.

The Colonials (26-9) also came to Cleveland with a longer stay on the brain, overcoming size mismatches in the first half to go into the locker room at the break down 40-36 and still very much in the picture. Guard Amarion Dickerson, a native of Cleveland, had 13 of his 25 points at halftime.

"I thought Robert Morris played hard. They're a good team. Their effort was great. They ended up with 16 offensive rebounds. We only had five," Crimson Tide coach Nate Oats said. "You've gotta give them a lot of credit."

Crimson Tide center Clifford Omoruyi was a nightmare in the paint during the first 20 minutes, scoring 15 (one off his season high) and then eclipsing his season-high mark with a basket less than one minute into the second half.

Alabama (26-8) and Robert Morris were level on three-pointers made as a team when they hit the locker room, with four apiece. Keeping the Crimson Tide off the three-point line could be argued as step one for an opposing team on the defensive end, that and managing tempo.

Once the second half commenced, the 15th-seeded Colonials were intent on showing that the initial stages of the contest were not a mirage. The Horizon League double-champs cut the deficit down to two with 16:32 to play, 46-44.

Freshman Crimson Tide forward Derrion Reid hit a three-point attempt as the shot clock expired with 12:49 on the clock. That stretched the lead to double digits and forced Colonials coach Andrew Toole to call timeout with moments to go until a media window.

Dickerson was not taking his homecoming lightly, and he did not at any point appear intent on settling for it ending early. Robert Morris followed Reid's make with a 6-0 run into the media timeout in which Dickerson scored all the points.

The score at that break was 56-52, Alabama. The clock showed 10:53, and the stands showed energy. The Robert Morris dream was alive. The Crimson Tide's paint presence had not affected the second half as much. Up to this point, the designated visitors had outrebounded Nate Oats' squad 11-5 in the frame and eventually whittled the score down to 60-58.

Alabama's Aiden Sherrell induced a foul call over the back with a basket on the next possession, but then missed the free throw and picked up a foul. Alvaro Folgueiras put back a Dickerson miss on the other end. Following a layup by Mark Sears, Dickerson went into the paint and scored.

"That's a hard-playing, athletic guy," Oats said. "Got two daughters here, Jocie, my
middle one, she's a sweetheart, but she goes, 'Dad, I feel
so bad for the other team. 3 [Dickerson's jersey number] never came out of the game.
He played so hard.'"

At the under-eight timeout, the score was 64-62. Alabama was in the lead, but it was by no means comfortable. The Rocket Arena crowd, however, was having a time, chanting 'RMU' at the sound of the whistle after the layup, which was also Sherrell's third foul.

It came down to execution on the glass, in which the Crimson Tide faltered severely as the contest wore on, and having the bigs impact the game. It was turning into the Dickerson show, while no Alabama guards had matched his individual impact or even scored in double digits.

With the 7:10 mark came Robert Morris' first lead on a layup by Josh Omojafo. If the Crimson Tide had not already been on upset alert, it well and truly was at this moment. With no favors from the crowd and facing a team that was doing anything but roll over, the No. 2 seed needed a run.

Injured Alabama fifth-year Grant Nelson was available to play in the game after suffering an injury to his knee on March 15 against Florida. At this crucial point, he came in and scored on an alley-oop dunk to give his team the lead back.

"I trust him," Oats said. "Been through a lot of games with him."

Nelson's dunk kickstarted a 6-0 run for the Crimson Tide. Sears finished with 22 and a double-double, while freshman guard Labaron Philon (who eventually got on the scoreboard for the first time with fewer than 40 seconds remaining) had eight assists at the under-four. Sears was fouled by Dickerson, who had amassed multiple personals in mere minutes of real time, to take the Alabama lead to 75-66 after a made free throw on the and-one.

"Mark kept saying, 'We're
not losing this game.' You're playing like there's no game

tomorrow if we don't win. He kept saying it in the huddles.
And you could he had a sense of urgency about him in the
second half," Oats said.

The free throw by Sears extended the run the Crimson Tide needed to 11-1. Some rebounding improvements and distributing the ball made a big difference, as did the Colonials failing to make shots late. Omoruyi only scored two points in the second half.

" So I just really trusted my
teammates, and I was just making the right read, trying to

create open shots for my teammates," Sears said. "And then the game repaid me back."

From there, the sailing was considerably smoother than it had been for the higher seed. Other double-digit scorers on the Crimson Tide? There was just one more, apart from Sears and Omoruyi. Mouhamed Dioubate had 18. Dickerson fouled out of the game for Robert Morris with 1:02 to go.

"When adversity came, we stuck together," Dioubate, who also-double-doubled with 10 rebounds, said. "Oats talked about it a lot. He said we're gonna face some kind of adversity, and it's about how we respond."

Alabama will play its next game on Sunday against the winner of the East Region's No. 7 seed, St. Mary's, against No. 10 Vanderbilt. If the Commodores topple the Gaels, it will set up a rematch of a 103-87 Crimson Tide win from Jan. 21.

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