Alabama Basketball: Crimson Tide almost wins despite only having three players

The Alabama Crimson Tide nearly earned a huge upset victory over the Minnesota  Golden Gophers despite having to finish the game 3 on 5.

No. 25 Alabama Crimson Tide played with just three players over the final 10 minutes and 41 seconds of their game against No. 14 Minnesota Golden  Gophers. Yet, the Tide almost pulled out the victory, falling 89-84 in the championship game of the Barclays Classic in Brooklyn.

Nate Mason scored a season-high 20 points, on 6-of-10 shooting including 4-of-6 from beyond the arc, to lead the Golden Gophers (7-0). In the meantime, 6-foot-6 junior forward Jordan Murphy continued his sensational start posting his seventh straight double-double. Murphy finished with 19 points and 14 boards before fouling out. He is averaging 22.5 points along with 12 rebounds while shooting 64.6 percent from the field.

However, it is the chaos that forced Alabama (5-1) to finish with less than a full complement of players on the court.

The drama started when Mason and Alabama star freshman Collin Sexton both drew technical fouls for trash talking. Mason picked up his second technical and was subsequently ejected a few seconds later when he kept yapping. Minnesota coach Richard Pitino also was hit with a technical for defending Mason.

Following the technical free throws by Sexton and a three-pointer by Riley Norris to cut the Crimson Tide deficit to 57-50, Minnesota’ Dupree McBayer and Alabama’s Dazon Ingram got tangled up and a shoving match ensued between the two.

The trouble really escalated when the Tide’s entire bench emptied on the court during the scuffle. Meaning that the seven players who left bench area would be ejected.

“By rule, whenever a potential situation occurs on the court, no player may leave the bench area. If they do leave the bench area and don’t participate in the altercation that’s going on then they are ejected from this contest and there’s no further penalty, which is what happened,” the officials told a pool reporter. “They all came onto the court. We went to the monitor and reviewed all of that. Based on the views that were given us it showed all of their players on the bench, came off the bench onto the court. The views we were given we didn’t see anyone from the Minnesota bench come onto the floor.”

Two minutes after the players’ ejections, Ingram picked up his fifth and disqualifying foul. Then less than a minute later, freshman John Petty went down with a sprained ankle leaving the Tide with three players and behind 67-54. Sexton, Norris and Galin Smith were the three remaining players

Alabama outscored Minnesota 30-22 the rest of the way. Sexton led the way for the Crimson Tide with a career-high 40 points, becoming the first player in school history to score that many points since Reggie King in 1978.  Sexton made 12-of-22 shots from the field, 4-of-7 from beyond the arc and went 12-of-16 from the charity stripe.

Norris finished with 13 points, while Smith had his best game of the season with 10 points, eight rebounds, and three blocked shots.

Sexton, who added six rebounds and five assists in the game, has shown why he is considered a one and down prospect. The 6-foot-3 point guard is averaging 21.5 points along with 4.3 assists and 3.8 rebounds while shooting 55.8 percent from the field as well as 43.8 percent from beyond the arc.

“Tough finish for us,” Alabama head coach

Avery Johnson

said. “Obviously we didn’t have our bench to be able to substitute and to give our guys a blow. It was all about a numbers game but take your hats off to our guys who finished the game, whether it was the four guys initially or the three guys before (

) got injured. They battled, they fought, they made some tough shots, they passed and moved, we got some tip-ins inside, and that’s the type of energy and effort we need, especially when we’re full strength. I’m proud of our guys, we have a lot of lessons that we can learn from today’s game.

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The win was Minnesota’s first in three ties in all-time series.