CHICAGO — Alabama’s season is over in large part because it wasn’t big enough. Simple as that. No. 1 seed Michigan knocked off the Crimson Tide 90-77 using a typical dominant second-half flurry to deliver the knockout blow. Michigan bested the Tide with brawn, and the numbers back it up.
Michigan outrebounded Alabama 25-12 and had a 20-10 advantage in points in the paint in the final 20 minutes. Alabama’s four-man platoon of London Jemison and Taylor Bol Bowen did not notch a single board in the second half.
Making the Sweet 16 for the fourth straight year is an unquestionable success story for Nate Oats and this Alabama program, but Friday’s second-half whimper illustrates the gap between the elites, like Michigan, and that second tier, where Alabama resided this season.
“We know we got to change a little bit,” Oats said. “We knew we were undersized. We were a little light in some of the spots, particularly our four spot.”
The muscle in Michigan’s huddle was far easier to spot than Alabama’s. Michigan had bricks in its britches; Alabama did not. Oats had to ask Bol Bowen (a stretch 4 who weighs 202 pounds) or London Jemison (an ever-improving freshman who weighs 205 pounds) to try and keep Morez Johnson, Aday Mara and Yaxel Lendeborg off the glass.
Oats pointed to injuries to freshman big man Collins Onyejiaka and sophomore Tarleton State transfer Keitenn Bristow as part of the calculus. He honed in on being forced to play freshman wing Amari Allen at the 4, when “he’s really a point guard.”
That’s fair.
But that’s not the entire story, and Oats chose to veer down a different path and re-open an old can of worms, featuring Baylor’s James Nnaji, Charles Bediako and a whole lot of lawyers.
“When we saw the opportunity to bring some size on after all the adversity we went through after Nnaji was declared eligible and most people, including ourselves, thought, you know, if they’re going to declare Nnaji eligible, Bediako would be eligible, and had one judge thought so, too,” Oats said. “He definitely would have helped the situation with the rebounding.”
While Oats is right, the justification rings a bit hollow. The fact that Bediako was able to return from the G-League and even play five games was a borderline miracle to some and an inside job to others for getting the right Alabama judge to grant a temporary restraining order. Bediako served as a “get out of jail free card” for Alabama to atone for some miscalculations in the transfer portal, and when he was ruled ineligible in early February, the flaws on this roster were as obvious as they were in non-conference play when gargantuan clubs like Arizona and Purdue battered Alabama on the boards.
With Bediako, Friday is a different ballgame, but the always-honest Oats may have been better served keeping this one in the chambers as he stewed over the end.
“It wasn’t meant to be,” Oats said. “We had something else in store for us.”
