Latrell Wrightsell Jr. leaves NCAA Tournament game with bloody nose
With a little over six minutes remaining in the first half of Alabama’s matchup against No. 13 seed Charleston, Alabama guard Latrell Wrightsell Jr. left the game with a bloody nose. Wrightsell went to the locker room with a trainer immediately after exiting the game.
Latrell Wrightsell Jr. suffered the injury after running into the back of a Charleston player. The 6-foot-3 senior was off to a hot start before being forced off the court. He currently has 11 points while shooting 4-5 from the field and 3-4 from beyond the arc.
Per USA Today’s Nick Kelly, Wrightsell is probable to return in the second half for the Crimson Tide.
Despite Wrightsell’s early production, Alabama trailed Charleston early. Halfway through the first half, Alabama had four turnovers. Worse, the team was failing to lock down the defensive glass. Charleston had tallied three offensive rebounds compared to Alabama’s zero.
Alabama head coach Nate Oats didn’t hesitate to call out his team’s lethargic start to the game.
“Our defense hasn’t been bad after the first few possessions,” Oats said. “We’re not rebounding well enough we can’t [defend] the turnovers we just had. We got to take care of the ball on the offensive end and we got to rebound better on the defensive end.”
A string of injuries for Latrell Wrightsell Jr.
This isn’t the first time this season Wrightsell has dealt with injuries. In late February, Wrightsell suffered a head injury in practice that kept him on the sidelines during Alabama’s contests against Florida, Kentucky, Ole Miss and Tennessee.
Wrightsell returned to full action in Alabama’s 92-88 overtime win over Arkansas. He was fantastic in the victory, tallying 20 points while shooting 66% from the field and 50% from downtown. After the game, Oats raved about Wrightsell’s importance to the team.
“We needed him in a bad way,” Oats told the press. “I feel like if we’d have had him in all those games he was out, we definitely wouldn’t have lost some of the ones we did. We’d have a league championship if he hadn’t gone down.
“… He played almost 40 minutes, and he made some tough plays. You can tell he’s probably not quite in good enough shape to play 40 minutes, but he had to. … I thought he was huge, and we need him in a bad way. Him scoring 20, we needed every one of those points tonight.”