By SCOTT FELTS
It was an orange out in Knoxville as the 17th ranked Alabama Crimson Tide traveled to the Food City Center to face the 22nd ranked Volunteers on Saturday. Peyton Manning was in attendance and if you believe in curses, this game was one for you.
The Vols (20-9, 10-6) didn’t trail the Crimson Tide (22-7, 12-4) until 22.8 seconds were left on the clock, and led by as many as 13 points with less than 12 minutes to go in the game. After a Ja’Kobi Gillespie layup missed, the Vols couldn’t get their hands on the rebound for what seemed like the first time all game and suffered a 71-69 loss.
Lets go Beyond the Box Score to see how it all went down.
D.R.S. Of Basketball: Defense, Rebounds and Second Chance Points were the stories of the game for Tennessee. Alabama only made 10 shots from the field in the first half and half of those were three pointers. They didn’t score until the 15:43 mark of the first half. The 28 first half points were a season low for Bama, a team that averages 91.5 points per game. Fifteen shots fell for Alabama in the second half, including three made 3-pointers to open the second half.
The Vols outrebounded Alabama 47-34 overall and 24-6 on the offensive glass, posting a 25-10 advantage on second chance points. That included a 28-17 rebounding total in the first half, with a 16-4 margin on offensive boards, grabbing an amazing 65% of their first half misses for 17 second chance points.
Late Game Labaron: Sophomore guard Labaron Philon, Jr., leads the Crimson Tide with 21.3 points per game, 4.8 assists, and 1.2 steals, despite not playing Wednesday and not starting on Saturday. He played 11 minutes in the first half, scoring eight points on 3-for-4 shooting, then went wild. He finished with 23 points, including 13 of Alabama’s final 15 points including the game-winning basket with 24 seconds remaining. Philon’s 23 points ranked second on the team to Latrell Wrightsell, who scored 25 led by his 6 of 9 shooting from 3-point range.
Absent Ament: Freshman forward Nate Ament got his right leg caught underneath him with 7:42 left to play in the first half and left the game. He was seen stretching and jumping in the tunnel and actually started the second half, where he made his only shot of the game before leaving the court for good.
Great Gillespie?: Gillespie did just about everything except make the game-tying basket. He played 36 minutes, dropped 26 points, five rebounds, seven assists, and eight steals. However, he needed a ton of shots to get there; he was 9 for 23 from the field and 3 for 10 from 3. Gillespie has to trust other players to step up if Ament is out for any substantial length of time. Gillespie shot 39% while the next three leading scorers, J.P. Estrella (12), Jaylen Carey (10), and Felix Okpara (8) all shot 45% or better.
Eight’s Not Enough: Gillespie became the first player in SEC history to log eight steals multiple times in conference competition, and the fourth in the conference to tally eight or more steals in multiple games. He also became just the 13th Division I player and just the second in a power conference to have eight-plus steals multiple times in the same season.
Block’para: With two blocks on Saturday, Okpara became the 20th Vol to reach 100 (101) career blocks while at Tennessee. Okpara was playing under the weather but toughed out 30 minutes of game time and scored eight points with nine rebounds.
Up Next: Tennessee travels to South Carolina (12–17, 3–13) on Tuesday night before finishing the regular season next Saturday at home against Vanderbilt. South Carolina is coming off a loss at Georgia and have lost nine of their last 10.
Tip Ins: Tennessee is 7-4 in the last 11 meetings with Alabama going back to 2017. The Vols had won five in a row, the third longest streak for them in the series. … Twelve of the last 14 games in the Tennessee-Alabama series, including 10 of the past 11, had a final scoring margin in single digits. … Tennessee has held Alabama to 71 points per game in 10 total games versus Nate Oats, conceding a high of 76. By contrast, the Tide is averaging 85.8 ppg against non-Tennessee opponents under Oats. … Saturday’s win in Knoxville marked the 10th straight game the Tide has made at least 10 3-pointers.