Alabama's backup center Noah Williamson 'really wanted to beat Kentucky'

Alabama’s Noah Williamson came into Saturday’s game averaging just 1.1 points per game. He ended the Crimson Tide’s 89-74 win over Kentucky as one of the most impactful players on the floor.

Williamson, a seven-footer who was an All-Patriot League performer the last two seasons at Bucknell, has not had the season he was expecting once he transferred to Tuscaloosa. A guy who was averaging nearly 30 minutes per game last season was averaging under 10 through the first 13 games of the 2025-26 season. But his head coach, Nate Oats, needed him to step up against a large and imposing Kentucky frontcourt.

Not only did Williams take on the challenge, but he also played a real role in Kentucky getting run out of Coleman Coliseum.

“We don’t win the game without him,” Oats said postgame.

Williamson finished with 10 points, four rebounds, two assists, two steals, and one block in a season-high 18 minutes. But most of his production came after halftime once Alabama’s 6-foot-10 starting forward, Aiden Sherell, went down with an injury. Williamson’s 10 points were as many as Kentucky’s entire frontcourt combined (five points from Jayden Quaintance, four from Malachi Moreno, and one from Brandon Garrison).

He entered the game with just four made field goals all season long. Williamson went 5-7 from the field against Kentucky. He finished as a +15 in the box score, second-highest among his teammates.

“It just makes the whole energy of the team shift,” Alabama’s Aden Holloway said of his teammate’s big game. “I feel like that gets us going as much as like a crazy dunk or something when we see Noah just out there playing and not overthinking stuff.”

Taking on Kentucky was a bit of a revenge opportunity for Williamson, too. Some might remember his time at Bucknell, when the Bison came to Rupp Arena in 2024-25. UK won that game with ease, 100-72, while Williamson played arguably his worst game of the entire season: seven points (3-12 FG) and five rebounds in 24 minutes.

“To be honest, I really wanted to beat Kentucky,” Williamson said postgame. “We played them last year at Bucknell and we lost pretty badly. This was probably my last opportunity to play them.”

Unless these two teams meet again in the postseason, this was the senior center’s last time playing Kentucky. He sure made the most of it, even getting the best of Quaintance, a future NBA lottery pick, multiple times. Williamson wasn’t the original recipient of Alabama’s Hard Hat Award (which values deflections, steals, blocks, floor dives, etc.) after the win, but his teammate Amari Allen made sure he was the one who put it on in the end.

Williamson’s performance was more about just having a good game against Kentucky, though — it was hopefully a sign of more to come from him this season as Alabama looks to make a third straight Elite Eight.

“He needed this game in a big way. Huge for him,” Oats said. “He did it against maybe the most athletic, biggest, toughest, for sure the most-hyped in the preseason frontcourt in our league.”

Today's Hard Hat Award winner presented by@mcabeeinc: Amari Allen#RollTide | #BlueCollarBasketball pic.twitter.com/045bDPKdtZ

— Alabama Men’s Basketball (@AlabamaMBB) January 3, 2026

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