The Three-Minute Run That Flipped the Script for Alabama in Blowout Loss to Arizona

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.–– The first half of Saturday night's matchup between No. 12 Alabama and No. 1 Arizona was everything a college basketball fan could ask for in a top-15 matchup. The atmosphere inside Legacy Arena in Birmingham felt like an NCAA tournament game as the Crimson Tide took a two-point lead into the break.

That energy and momentum in Alabama's favor quickly evaporated. The Tide came out a little slow in the second half, but only trailed the Wildcats by seven with 14 minutes to go after an Amari Allen free throw. Less than three minutes later, Arizona's lead ballooned to 18 points on the way to a 96-75 blowout victory for the nation's top team.

What was once a close, competitive, exciting game, flipped completely in what felt like the blink of an eye. From 13:47 to 11:22 in the second half, the Wildcats scored 11 unanswered points with no timeouts to be found from Alabama head coach Nate Oats to try and stop the run.

"Call a timeout and tell them to play harder?" Oats said when asked. "Or call timeout to make adjustments? I'm not going to call timeout to tell them to play harder. Those guys are supposed to be competitors."

After Allen's free throw, he turned the ball over which led to a transition bucket for Ivan Kharchenkov that started the 11-0 run. Another bad turnover from Alabama led to an alley oop in transition for the Wildcats, and the rout was on. A fastbreak 3-pointer from Brayden Burries was the cherry on top of the Arizona run.

Burries led all scorers with 28 points, 20 of which came in the second half. At one point in the second half, he scored 15 straight points for the Wildcats.

Arizona went on a 28-8 run out of halftime that sucked the air out of heavily-Alabama crowd inside Legacy Arena. The Crimson Tide went cold on offense and struggled to grab rebounds and get stops on defense. Alabama missed eight of its first nine 3-pointers in the second half.

"We've had this issue where we just haven't had very good starts to the second half," Oats said. "We came out, didn't have a good start, and it just progressively got worse. I think they scored 39 the entire first half, and they had 39 in less than 12 minutes to start the second half."

The battle on the boards provided the most notable difference. Arizona hauled in 22 offensive rebounds for 15 second-chance points. The Wildcats had five offensive rebounds on one possession early in the second half.

Between the offensive rebounds and poor shooting from Alabama, the Crimson Tide's deficit got too large to ever make it a competitive game again. Arizona outscored Alabama 57-34 in the second half.

"Fortunately, we landed a few haymakers, made some defensive plays," Arizona head coach Tommy Lloyd said after the game. "Obviously, Brayden got in his own little flow, and it was pretty special."

Labaron Philon Jr. and Latrell Wrightsell Jr. provided the bulk of Alabama's offense, combing for 45 of the Crimson Tide's 75 points. Philon took the blame for a couple bad passes that led to turnovers as part of Alabama's second-half issues.

"I feel like I made a couple bad passes myself, just getting in the lane not knowing where I was going with the ball," Philon said. "I would say I made a couple mistakes. Just really, getting back in transition, and like coach said, just being way more physical… We’ve just got to get guys off the line, be way better on defense, and like coach said, rebound the basketball.”

Arizona stays undefeated and improves to 9-0 on the season. Alabama falls to 7-3 and will be back in action on Wednesday at 7 p.m. against South Florida.

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