Alabama's NCAA Tournament run ends with Final Four loss to UConn

GLENDALE, Ariz. – Alabama’s historic run in the NCAA Tournament ended Saturday night. 

The Crimson Tide, a 4-seed, lost to top overall seed UConn, 86-72, in the program’s first-ever Final Four appearance at State Farm Stadium. Alabama’s 2023-24 season ended with a 25-12 record and one game short of Monday night’s national championship game.

HOW IT HAPPENED

Grant Nelson opened the scoring with a three, but UConn answered with seven straight points to take an early lead. Rylan Griffen stopped the bleeding with Alabama’s second triple – it would go on to make 8-of-11 before intermission. A second three from Griffen – and the Tide’s fifth of the first half – gave the 4 seed its largest lead to that point, 23-18, at the 11:09 mark. That lead evaporated behind a 10-2 run by the Huskies, and after a Latrell Wrightsell trey with 4:58 left in the first half, UConn was in front for the rest of the half. Mark Sears made a layup just before the buzzer to cut the No. 1 overall seed’s lead to 44-40 at halftime.

The Huskies scored the first four points out of the break, but an Aaron Estrada three ignited a 7-0 run for the Crimson Tide. That became a trend in the second half. First Alabama scored seven straight, followed by seven in a row from UConn, another 7-0 stretch for the Tide and then an 11-2 streak by the Huskies to tie their largest lead of the night, 67-58. After Sears made a layup to cut it to seven, Alabama didn’t score another field goal for more than five minutes before the team’s leading scorer knocked down a deep, much-needed three to trim the lead to 76-68, but that was as close as the Crimson Tide came to a comeback.

PLAYERS OF THE GAME

Sears led Alabama with 24 points, scoring 20 or more for the 26th time this season – already a single-season school record. Two other seniors joined him in double figures as Nelson tallied a double-double (19 points, 15 rebounds), while Estrada added 13 points. UConn guard Stephon Castle paced the Huskies with 21 points, but all five of starters scored in double figures. Center Donovan Clingan scored 18 points and had four of the Huskies’ eight blocks.

KEY STATS

Alabama finished the game shooting 45 percent (26-58) from the field, while UConn was an even 50 (31-62). The Crimson Tide was better from three (11-23, 10-25) and the free-throw line (9-11, 14-18). Beyond that, the Huskies were superior in every other statistical category. UConn ended up with eight more rebounds (37-29), four more second-chance points (18-14), 12 more points in the paint (38-26), three more blocks (8-5) and 11 more assists (20-9).

QUOTE FROM OATS

“First, just want to thank our guys for getting this school to a Final Four for the first time in school history. We had an unbelievable run. Guys kind of got us over the hump to get there. So can’t say enough about the leadership of these guys, particularly in the last few weeks.

“Unfortunate that it ended tonight, but we played arguably the best team in the country. I mean, UConn is top five in offense and defense. It showed tonight. I thought our guys did a good job staying in there, not giving up big runs. After we tied it there in the second half, I think they went on an 8-0 run after that, I if remember that, it was pretty quick.

“They’re good. Like Danny says, they’re close to being bulletproof. When you’re that great on both sides of the ball, you out-rebound teams, the official box score had us down for zero fast break points. The first time all year that that’s happened to us. We’re used to getting out in transition. This game ended up being 64 possessions, which is a lot slower than we like. We kind of know they play a lot slower.

“They got out in transition on us a little bit. They hit a three in transition. They got that dunk early in the second half. We let it get away from us a little bit.

“UConn is great. It’s going to be a great matchup Monday night. Our guys were really good from this stretch in the NCAA tournament. We just came up a little short tonight, but we came up short against a great team.”

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