BamaCentral Courtside: Alabama 92, Arkansas 88
Final thoughts and takeaways after Alabama basketball wrapped up the regular season with an overtime victory over the Razorbacks.
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00:00 For the last time from Coleman Coliseum this season, this is Baymeister Courtside along Joe
00:04 Gaither and Blake Beiler. I'm Katie Windham. After Alabama's 92-88 overtime win over Arkansas,
00:09 Alabama came into the game as huge favorites. I believe they were 16 points and needed overtime
00:14 to get it done, but they did get it done. They finished the regular season with a win. Joe,
00:18 what changed in the second half and in overtime in order for Alabama to erase the early deficit
00:23 to get this win? Well, I think Coach Oates pretty much nailed it in his postgame press conference.
00:28 They stopped turning the basketball over in the second half. They really had, what, three
00:31 second half turnovers in the first media period, but really the rest of the game they stopped
00:36 turning the basketball over and that allowed them to get more shots up at the rim and reset
00:41 their defense. I think that allowed them to slowly dig their way back into the game. Yeah,
00:46 and I think we saw a lot from Mark Sears and Luttrell Wrights from the second half and then,
00:49 of course, in overtime, Sam Walters scored seven of his ten points, had a big three,
00:53 had a big offense rebound, had the big dunk at the end of the game to really kind of put it away.
00:58 Like I said, Alabama finished the season with a win, 13-5 in SEC play. It sets them up with a
01:03 double bye. Blake, just now that we're at the end of the regular season, kind of what is this broad,
01:08 but your overall takeaways and how important was it for Alabama to get this double bye heading
01:11 into Nashville next week? Yeah, I think this was huge just because of kind of the slide that
01:16 Alabama had been on. They'd lost three of their last four games, including losing two straight
01:19 in SEC play, something they hadn't done in over two years. So to come into a game and need a
01:26 bounce back win to not play well at all and to still be able to come away with an overtime win,
01:30 a gritty win, I think that's going to give them some confidence as a team going into the SEC
01:35 tournament. Also, it avoids a disaster scenario where you fall out of that top four and you have
01:40 to play on Thursday in the SEC tournament. With how deep this league is, there's kind of no way
01:45 that you're going to end up winning the SEC tournament if you start playing on Thursday.
01:49 And on top of that, I think today just kind of showed how important Luttrell Wrights is to this
01:53 team. Nato talked after the game being as confident as he is saying that if Alabama had Luttrell
01:59 Wrights, this team would have won the SEC regular season title. And that could be true. We don't
02:04 really know that. Do you believe him? I think it's possible. I think the way that Luttrell Wrights,
02:10 he doesn't turn the ball over. He shoots 100 percent from the free throw line so far. He's
02:15 a 45 percent three point shooter. Just all the things that affect winning, he does. And he did
02:20 that today with his 20 points, including the game tying shot. So today really showed how important
02:26 he is to this team. And also this season has shown how important he is. And having him back is going
02:30 to be huge in Nashville. Yeah. I mean, last Saturday when we were in here, Alabama had a
02:35 chance to secure the number one seed, win the SEC regular season. It didn't happen. They went
02:40 on a little bit of a slide. It would have been a really bad slide heading into Nashville if they'd
02:44 lost today. But they do read on and get the win and do get the double bye, which is important,
02:49 like Nate Oates said, because of the depth of this team, some of the injuries they've had lately.
02:52 Luttrell Wrights has been out and then he played what, 30 plus minutes today?
02:55 40. 39, 40 minutes. Ryan Griffin didn't play at all today. So Oates said they're hoping to get
03:01 him back for next week. And so it wasn't the prettiest game for a lot of the game for Alabama,
03:07 but they get the win in overtime. And that'll wrap up our coverage from Coleman Coliseum this season,
03:12 but we're not done for the season. We will all be in Nashville next week at the SEC tournament.
03:16 So make sure you follow that. Thank you so much for watching.
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