NICEVILLE, Fla. – The No. 17/15 Alabama men’s basketball team ended the Emerald Coast Classic with a win over Oregon, 99-91, Saturday afternoon at Raider Arena for its fifth win of the season. The Crimson Tide was led by Mark Sears scoring a season-high 27 points and was named to the Emerald Coast Classic All-Tournament team.

 

Aaron Estrada filled the stat sheet with 22 points, 4 rebounds and 4 assists while Rylan Griffen scored a season-high 17 points. Oregon (4-2) was led by Jermaine Couisnard with a team-high 24 points.

 

Head Coach Nate Oats Postgame Comments

“It is good to come out of here with a win. We didn’t play our best basketball against Ohio State, they did a great job and we challenged our guys to be better on defense and I thought we played a lot harder. Mark (Sears) played significantly harder, was really locked in tonight and led our team in blue collar points and ended up with seven rebounds as a guard. He drove the ball downhill and I thought he was really into it on defense and I thought our team was better defensively. We are still making way too many defensive mistakes but I thought our effort was good. We did a better job on the glass, we stepped up to the free throw line and only missed two free throws so to go 26-28 from the line is impressive.”

 

Team Stats

• Alabama had four players score double figures in Aaron Estrada (22 points), Rylan Griffen (17 points), Grant Nelson (11 points) and led by Mark Sears with a team-high 27 points
• UA shot a season-best 92 percent (26-28) from the free throw line 
• The Crimson Tide shot 50 percent (32-64) from the floor
• Alabama matched its season-high in blocks (6) as a team
• The Tide outrebounded Oregon 40-28

 

First Half

• Alabama led 47-39 at the break
• Every UA player that saw playing time (nine players) in the first half scored for UA led by Mark Sears’ 13 points
• Alabama trailed 21-18 at the 9:29 mark and Alabama went on a 12-1 to take a 30-22 lead
• The Crimson Tide outscored Oregon 20-16 inside the paint
• Alabama dished out 10 assists off 17 made field goals

 

Second Half

• Midway through the half Alabama jumped out to its first double-digit lead (67-56) with just under 13 minutes left in the game
• Alabama’s biggest lead of the game was 18 points (81-63) with eight minutes left in the game
• Oregon cut Alabama’s lead to single digits with four minutes left in the game (88-79) and cut its as low as six points on three separate occasions
• Despite making a comeback, Alabama was 19-20 from the free throw line in the second half
• Aaron Estrada led all scorers in the second half with 15 points

 

Up Next

• Alabama will return home to compete against Clemson in the ACC/SEC Challenge on Tuesday, Nov. 28
• Tipoff is slated for 8:30 p.m. CT and can be seen on ESPN

 

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