Kentucky snapped its four-game losing streak with an 81-71 win over Alabama on Saturday.
The Crimson Tide, who picked up back-to-back blowout wins prior to the game in Lexington, simply couldn’t make enough plays down the stretch to score the victory.
And while it added another loss to Alabama’s total this season, the Tide are still in fine shape when it comes to making the NCAA Tournament.
Here are some takeaways from the game.
Rebounding
It is difficult to look at the box score from this game and not have the rebounding numbers jump out at you.
Alabama was dominated on the glass by a margin of 44-27, including an astounding 20 offensive rebounds for Kentucky.
This is a concerning stat for Alabama. The Crimson Tide are the best defensive team in the conference, but only rank 9th in the SEC in rebounding.
Alabama is great on defense and make it tough for any offense to score. However, the Tide make it tough on themselves when they allow opponents to get second chances to score. Kentucky took advantage of that weakness en route to 20 second chance points on Saturday.
Several factors played into Alabama’s poor performance on the boards. According to KenPom, Kentucky is the fourth tallest team in the country, while Alabama is not far behind as the country’s 28th tallest team.
The problem was that Alabama was failing to box out, and the Kentucky players were just relentless in going after rebounds while the Tide struggled to find any momentum on the glass.
From Alabama’s perspective, this was disappointing to see since the Wildcats struggled to score on their first opportunity each possession, but were getting buckets on their second, third, and even fourth attempts.
Alabama’s defense is too good to allow that many second chances to opponents. Rebounding will certainly be a point of emphasis moving forward for this team, and it will be interesting to see how the Tide does on the boards against one of the best rebounding teams in the conference in Auburn.
Offense
Alabama played fairly well offensively in this game.
The Crimson Tide shot 47 percent from the field and only turned the ball over 13 times. Alabama made only 25 percent of its 3-point attempts and was 61 percent from the free-throw line, which are numbers we have come to expect from this squad on the road.
I thought John Petty’s play was a huge positive as he finally saw some success in an SEC road game. The freshman was Alabama’s second leading scorer with 13 points. Petty was only 3 of 11 from the field and 3 of 10 from long range, but it is still more production than he has had on the road all season.
Donta Hall continued his hot streak in tallying 16 points, six rebounds, and two blocks in 30 minutes of action.
In Hall’s last three games, he is averaging 17.6 points on 82.5 percent shooting, 8.3 rebounds, and 2.3 blocks per game.
He has been arguably Alabama’s best player in the month of February, and one of the better players in the entire conference.
Defense
Amazingly, despite some struggles in other areas of the game, Alabama was still in position to win at Rupp Arena in the final three minutes.
If the Tide could have ended some defensive possessions earlier, they would have a had a great chance at winning the game.
I have always thought that this team is incapable of being blown out. They will always keep a game close, even when they are not playing particularly well.
The reason why? Their defense. Alabama, ranked 10th in the country in defensive efficiency (KenPom), should have a chance in every game because of how well it defends.
That defense will get tested on Wednesday night when Alabama travels to Auburn for a crucial game. The Tigers are the best offensive team in the SEC and average almost 85 points a game.
But in the first meeting between the two teams, Alabama held Auburn to just 71 points in a Crimson Tide victory.
If Alabama plays to its potential, Wednesday’s showdown has a chance to be the game of the year in the conference.
Let’s see if it can live up to the hype.