Three takeaways from Alabama basketball’s turnover-filled loss to Oregon

The No. 13 Alabama men’s basketball team lost 81-75 to Oregon on Saturday night in the inaugural Players Era Festival Championship.

This NIL event in Las Vegas is the first of its kind as the winning team, Oregon, will receive $1.5 million in prize money. Alabama will take home $1.25 million.

There is so much to analyze from this duel at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. Here are three takeaways:

The Crimson Tide had many positives in their Players Era Festival campaign, but the turnovers were easily their biggest flaw. Alabama committed 20 turnovers in a 95-90 win over Rutgers – the most turnovers in a Tide game since the 91-71 loss to Tennessee on Jan. 20 last season.

Luckily for Alabama, it took until the eighth turnover for Rutgers to finally capitalize and score. However, the number of giveaways didn’t exactly improve in the second half and the Scarlet Knights took advantage by finishing the game 23 points behind on turnovers.

Saturday night wasn’t much different, as Alabama gave the ball away 15 times. But this time, Oregon scored consistently off of Alabama’s turnovers as the Ducks got 17 points out of them. One of those came late in the game when Crimson Tide forward Grant Nelson gave up a goal at 75 with 1:55 left in regulation, but after a goalie check it was confirmed that forward Jarin Stevenson did not record a chase down block When the broadcast was “shocked,” it was not lifted.

This category of statistics was crucial to the outcome of the game, as Oregon committed eight turnovers and Alabama only scored five points from them.

“Our turnovers kind of haunted us here in Vegas last game and this game, and the points from turnovers are 17-5,” Alabama head coach Nate Oats said during the postgame press conference. “It’s hard to overcome that.” We have to find a way to take better care of basketball. It’s all of them. Everyone on the team except Wrightsell turned the ball over tonight. We had multiple people with multiple sales. Turnovers are 15-8 and points are 17-5 off turnovers. It’s hard to overcome that. I think that was the biggest problem.

One of the aforementioned positives for Alabama at the Players Era Festival was the Tide’s prevalent scoring numbers in the stats. Against Rutgers, four Alabama forwards scored double-digit points. The ball moved significantly on offense against Houston, as forwards Mouhamed Dioubate and Grant Nelson and guards Mark Sears, Latrell Wrightsell Jr. and Aden Holloway scored more than 10 points.

On Saturday evening, five Alabama players again scored in double figures: Labaron Philon (15), Sears (11), Holloway (11), Stevenson (11) and Wrightsell (10).

“We’re pretty evenly matched,” Oats said. “We had five players in double figures. We tried to get the ball moving. On a bad shooting night, to be honest, we got 21 assists from some of our better shooters. That’s why I thought we did a good job. “If we hadn’t turned the ball over 15 times it would have been good, but we like to see him move around a little bit.

“We had five guys in double figures and I think there are other guys – Grant would be one who will probably be in double figures more often than not. “Cliff (Omoruyi) can obviously be a scorer for us too. Derrion (Reid) had games. Mo had big games. We have several guys capable of scoring in double figures. To be able to score 81 points even though we didn’t shoot particularly well and still get it 15 times, I think it’s a testament to the depth that we have. But we have to use our depth and not turn the ball over.”

Throughout the offseason, Alabama was praised across the board for its absurd depth. The Tide added eight players this offseason, two of whom, Naas Cunningham and Houston Mallette, are redshirt players. These new additions have shown overall promise at the start of the season and are starting to mesh well with the five returning players.

Wrightsell suffered a non-contact lower leg injury early in the second half Saturday night. He lay there for a while, unable to go to the locker room because he had to rely on two trainers to guide him with his arms on their shoulders.

After a return to the game was determined to be in doubt, he was later shown on the TNT broadcast wearing an Alabama warm-up tracksuit, meaning he was done for the evening with less than 10 minutes remaining in regulation time .

“(The coaches) are worried about his hamstring, which obviously wouldn’t be good,” Oats said during the postgame press conference. “They will examine him as soon as we get back. He’ll do an MRI and see what we have. We keep our fingers crossed.”

The 1.90 meter tall guard is averaging 11.7 points per game this season with extremely efficient shooting numbers: 49 percent from the field and 41.5 percent from downtown. Entering Saturday night, Wrightsell led Alabama 17-7 in three games this season.

However, his status is currently unknown. It’s uncertain when he’ll return, but it’s hard to be optimistic given basketball’s history of Achilles tendon injuries that don’t result in physical contact. Without him are Alabama’s current guards Sears, Philon, Holloway and transfer Chris Youngblood, who is expected to make his season debut in the near future after suffering a foot injury during the offseason.

As the numbers show, Wrightsell had a huge impact on the Crimson Tide’s success early in the season. Is Alabama increasing the minutes for some of these players? Is Alabama removing the redshirt for Mallette or Cunningham?

Wrightsell’s absence will likely change the game plan a bit, but hopefully he recovers quickly.