Why Labaron Philon Has 'Got to be Better' Despite Career Night in Loss to Gonzaga

Alabama guard Labaron Philon Jr. has truly been sensational in the first few games of his sophomore campaign.

He's been named the SEC Player of the Week in two of the first three weeks of the young season and has rewritten his career-high in points three times. The third occasion came during Monday night's 95-85 loss to No. 12 Gonzaga during the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas.

Philon scored 29 points by the midway point of the second half. It looked as though he would have a night for the books, but after hitting that layup with 9:51 remaining, Philon never scored again until the final buzzer sounded. So, what could Gonzaga possibly have done to shut the Preseason All-SEC First Team member down in crunch time?

“They came out of the one timeout in the zone, and he turned it over," Alabama head coach Nate Oats said during the postgame press conference. "He’s got to be better. I mean, he scored it well tonight. Everybody knows he can score it and get in the paint pretty easily. He can finish it at the rim well.

"I thought our bigs did a good job of kind of, in ball screens and then kind of sealing them off to give him some pretty easy layups that he converted. He made a couple of threes early in the game. They adjusted a little bit, they went zone. I think they switched some. We’re going to see that.

Oats explained that during the Crimson Tide's win over St. John's in Madison Square Garden, the Red Storm didn't switch much. He admitted that "We weren't really ready for it," and that Bulldogs two-time Naismith Coach of the Year Mark Few "switched the whole game on us."

"So I think we’re going to see different coverages, especially in ball screens than what maybe some teams typically do, just because he does a good job. I think he was kind of carving them up a little bit there with their quick showing back, and they adjusted and went to switching.

"And I don’t think we did a great job attacking their switching. I don’t think we did a great job attacking their zone. They did a good job kind of switching stuff up and he got slowed down there."

In addition to leading Alabama in points by a wide margin, Philon dished a team-high seven assists. However, he was the only Crimson Tide player who played a minimum of five minutes without grabbing a single rebound, and he also gave up a career-high six turnovers.

Of course, Oats stressed that the loss was by no means solely on Philon, as "We can't ask him to score 40 to win the game." But the other stat categories were truly not in the guard's favor.

"It’d be nice if he’d grab a rebound or take care of the ball better," Oats said. "He can’t have six turnovers either. But we've got to get more help for him. And some of that’s on him. He’s got to set his teammates up a little bit better to score and help them out a little bit.

"I think we’ve got one of the better shooting teams in the country, and we didn’t shoot [well] all night. So, we got to find better threes for our shooters. Part of that’s on them. Part of that’s on him. Part of that’s on our guys that are screening. I think it’s a team thing to get our shooters better shots.”

Philon and the No. 8 Crimson Tide aim to rebound from this loss in UA's second game of the Players Era Festival against UNLV at 11 p.m. CT on TNT.

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