Alabama Basketball: Biggest fakeaways from UNC Loss in Battle 4 Atlantis

Alabama Basketball fell to 2-3 on Wednesday after falling to the sixth-ranked, North Carolina Tar Heels, but not everything was bad.

Alabama basketball headed into Wednesday after a big win against Furman which got the Crimson Tide back to an even .500. After over a week off, Alabama took on the North Carolina Tar Heels in their first game of the Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas.

Although Alabama went onto lose this game 76-67, there were several things the Crimson Tide did well, but there were also a lot of things they didn’t do well.

The biggest takeaway from this game was that Alabama let UNC collect a total of 23 offensive rebounds and 60 rebounds overall, compared to their eight offensive boards and 31 rebounds total.

When you’re letting up 23 offensive rebounds and are getting out-rebounded by double your amount, the game typically won’t go the way you want it to and that is what happened on Wednesday afternoon in the Bahamas.

If I told you Alabama collected 31 rebounds to UNC’s 60, you’d probably think Alabama lost by at least 15, but that was not the case. The Crimson Tide managed to keep the game somewhat close before eventually losing by nine points.

A big reason Alabama managed to keep this in single digits was thanks to the fact that they forced 20 turnovers out of the Tar Heels, while also having two players in John Petty and Kira Lewis scoring over 20 points.

Unfortunately, however these were the only two players for Alabama who scored double-digit points, compared to the four players for UNC who managed to do so.

Another big problem Alabama had was getting to the line as they only took nine free throws, making four of them. If you’re going to beat good teams like North Carolina you need to drive to the basket and get to the free throw line more than nine times.

This unfortunately was something the Crimson Tide failed to do and because of it, they paid the price.

Overall this was a great showing from Alabama and personally as a student at Bama, I will take a nine-point loss to a team that is currently ranked sixth in the nation, considering they lost by 14 to Rhode Island.

Alabama will now face off with the Iowa State Cyclones in their second matchup of the Battle 4 Atlantis on Thanksgiving Day.