The SEC regular-season champions didn't play like it on Saturday.
No. 2 Alabama's recent shooting woes continued in College Station as it fell to No. 24 Texas A&M 67-61.
"It’s another tough game," Alabama head coach Nate Oats. "That’s four in a row we’ve had come down to the wire, coming off a hard-fought win Wednesday against Auburn. A&M made us play hard for this one, which we expected, and we just didn’t quite have enough. They were ready to go, we weren’t.
"We can’t keep coming out of the gate and getting down double digits in the first half. I think that’s three straight games we’ve been down double digits in the first half. I thought our effort was decent. We just had too many turnovers, couldn’t make a shot, too many mistakes on defense. They came ready to play."
Here are three takeaways from Saturday's game.
Miller, Quinerly, Clowney lead second-half charge
After another cold first half, Alabama relied upon Jahvon Quinerly and Brandon Miller to help claw its way back into the game.
The duo combined for 17 of the Crimson Tide's 32 points as it helped Alabama trim a double-digit deficit down to just two points in the second half. Along with the scoring duo, the Crimson Tide got plenty of production from Noah Clowney who scored nine of his 11 points in the final frame.
Clowney went 4-for-4, including a rare 3-pointer in the loss.
Alabama's abysmal first half
Stop me if you've heard this before: Alabama basketball begins a game shooting less than 30%, which includes an ice-cold start from deep and went into halftime trailing by 10 points or more.
While that has been a sobering trend for Alabama over the last three games, the Crimson Tide found a new low on Saturday. The team mustered just 22 points thanks to a 21% field-goal percentage. What really sunk the field-goal percentage was Alabama's 2-for-19 mark from behind the 3-point line. It's the lowest first-half 3-point mark since the Longwood game to open the season.
Alabama finished with a season-low .517 points per possession marking its most inefficient offensive performance of the season.
"We’ve gotta figure out a way to get them more prepared at the beginning," Oats said. "We’ve been struggling on both sides of the ball early. Offensively, it’s been a major problem, though. I think the last two games, we’ve had two and three points after the first media timeout, which is not how we wanna be playing. We’ve gotta do a better job prepping them with how to attack, what they’re gonna do defensively to start the game."
3-point shooting woes
Along with the team's poor lay to begin the last three games, Alabama's 3-point percentage has continued its downward spiral.
Over the last four games, the Crimson Tide has gone 25 of 116 from deep which includes a 13% mark against Arkansas. Alabama shot closer to 40% for most of the year, but the recent struggles have sunk the team's percentage to less than 35% which ranks the team 168th in the country.
Against the Aggies, Jaden Bradley was the team's most efficient shooter from deep, going 1-for-1. Quinerly and Miller both had two 3-pointers a piece, going 2-for-6 and 2-for-12 respectively.
"I didn’t realize we were 25-of-116 in the four games. That’s not shocking. I knew we haven’t shot it well. We’ve got a week, six days before we play again. We’ll get back in the gym and try to get it fixed," Oats said.
