The 3-pointer: Three takeaways from Alabama's loss to San Diego State

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Alabama’s magical run came to an end in the Bluegrass State as the No. 1 overall seed Crimson Tide fell to the No. 5 seed San Diego State Aztecs 71-64.

Here are three takeaways from Friday’s season-ending loss.

When San Diego State head coach Brian Dutcher said his goal was to slow Alabama’s uptempo offense down, he meant it by any means necessary. Dutcher said the Aztecs were “going to build walls” to prevent the Crimson Tide’s offense from getting up to top speed. Thanks to a menacing full-court press, SDSU did just that, making Alabama work just to get the ball inbounded.

Alabama shot a putrid 27% from the floor and tallied more personal fouls (9) than it did field goals (8) through the first 20 minutes. There was no other player the press affected more than Brandon Miller who scored just four points on just 2 of 9 shooting. He was also limited to just 11 minutes after picking up two personal fouls with more than 14 minutes left in the half. Along with his poor shooting, Miller struggled to take care of the ball tallying six turnovers for the third time this season. Before Friday, the team went 1-1 in games where Miller coughed it up six times downing Auburn 90-85 in overtime on March 1 and falling to Gonzaga 100-90 on Dec. 7.

When the Crimson Tide was able to break the press and get to the rim, the Aztecs’ physicality on the inside bothered Alabama as it went 16-for-32 on dunks and layups.

"Their physicality bothered us in the half-court for sure," Alabama head coach Nate Oats said. "They kind of got us off of our drives (San Diego State's Nathan Mensah) ends up with five blocks, they had eight blocks in the game. We needed to do a little bit of a better job of making better rim decisions. But yeah they're (a) tough physical, big, strong, experienced team, and we — especially in the first half — we didn't come out prepared.

"It's somewhat on us, and somewhat the players have to get comfortable with the way they played. We've had that happen before, but I thought they did a great job in the second half, and then our defense just wasn't quite good enough to overcome the poor shooting night."

Alabama’s tournament run has been highlighted by some clutch performances off the bench. While Nick Pringle had his moment to shine in Birmingham thanks to his 19 points and 15 rebounds against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Alabama needed another big performance from a non-starter on Friday. Noah Gurley was that guy for the Crimson Tide, scoring six points on 3 of 3 shooting in his 16 minutes on the floor.

Thanks to Gurley, it was a bounce-back game for the entire bench who scored 16 points against the Aztecs compared to just the five points it scored against Maryland a mere six days ago. Despite the uptick in production, Alabama was outmatched by SDSU's bench which wracked up 25 points against Alabama.

The San Diego State-Alabama game epitomized the notion that basketball is a game of runs. After trailing by five points at halftime, the Crimson Tide closed the deficit and took its largest lead of the game thanks to an 11-2 start to the final 20 minutes of play. The scoring barrage was highlighted by Charles Bediako’s six points all of which came from the paint. It also featured a Miller 3-pointer, which was his first long ball of the game, snapping an 0-for-6 start.

Just when Alabama began to take over the game, the Aztecs conjured up a run of their own, outscoring Alabama 19-4. The run was highlighted by SDSU’s Darrion Trammell who tallied 12 points which brought the Aztecs back from six points down to a seven-point lead with 3:51 left in the game.

To our credit, when they came out energized in the second half, they built a lead," San Diego State coach Brian Dutcher said. "We took a time-out I think right by the 12-minute mark, and then Darrion came out of the time-out and hit a three and a two, and he changed the momentum. Then we got settled back in.

"I just tell the guys, nothing is going to be easy. So just keep playing our brand of basketball, keep doing your best, stay competitive. And I'm using Muhammad Ali quotes because we're Louisville, and we talked about confidence and the key to confidence is being fearless, and I thought we were fearless tonight."