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TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — It’s been a month, and Alabama basketball still feels the sting of its 84-63 loss to Auburn.
The miserable night inside Auburn Arena featured an equally jarring stat line. The Crimson Tide committed a season-worst 21 turnovers which resulted in 30 points the other way. Along with capitalizing on Alabama’s many miscues, Auburn punished the Crimson Tide from beyond the arc, making 13 of 22 (59 percent) of its 3-point attempts.
“As the season went forward, that’s one thing that always stuck in our mind about what happened down there,” guard John Petty said. “That’s one of our biggest rivals at Alabama. So we’re just going to come in and try to fix all the mistakes we made down there, try to reduce the turnovers that we had and just play smarter basketball and come out with a win."
Alabama (17-12, 8-8 in the SEC) will have the opportunity to rid the sour taste from its mouth Tuesday at 8 p.m. CT as it hosts Auburn (20-9, 9-7) for its final home game of the regular season.
While the Crimson Tide can work to clean up its mistakes from its last game against Auburn, there’s a bit of inevitability when trying to guard the Tigers’ perimeter shooting. Auburn leads the SEC shooting 37.7 percent from beyond the arc and has a total of 323 made 3-pointers this season — 79 more than second-place Mississippi State.
“We can’t get discouraged when they make a tough three,” Alabama coach Avery Johnson said. “We just don’t want those threes to be wide open because of a breakdown on defense.
“We feel we’ll take and make our shot if we can get our shots at the basket. When you don’t have 21 opportunities to shoot the ball, that means you don’t have a chance to make a 3; you don’t have a chance to get points in the paint, get to the free-throw line, get an offensive rebound and, more importantly, get your defense set.”
Tuesday night’s game will mark the 160th meeting between the two schools on the hardwood. Alabama holds a 95-64 advantage in the series, including a 42-8 record inside of Coleman Coliseum. The game will be televised on ESPNU.
Injury report
Johnson provided an update on guard Dazon Ingram who suffered a left quad contusion during Alabama’s game South Carolina last week. Ingram started against LSU over the weekend but recorded just a single point over 12 minutes.
“Dazon Ingram is improving,” Johnson said. “He’ll practice today, and then we’ll see how he recovers and what his status will be for the game tomorrow because he really wasn’t moving well at all in our last game. Hopefully, we can get him back going again because we definitely need him.”
Ingram is averaging 7.3 points, 3.9 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game. He ranks third on the team with a 46.2 field-goal percentage.
Auburn will also be without a star player as center Austin Wiley is expected to miss the game with a lower-leg injury. The 6-foot-11 junior is averaging 8.2 points and 4.9 rebounds per game. Wiley also missed the game against Alabama earlier this season.
Alabama’s tournament picture
Alabama enters Tuesday night’s game needing to add to its NCAA Tournament resume.
Following its loss to LSU over the weekend, the Crimson Tide dropped six spots to No. 54 in the NET rankings used to help determine the tournament field. Alabama is 2-8 against Quadrant 1 teams and 7-3 against Quadrant 2 teams. The seven Quadrant 2 wins are the ninth most in the nation. The Crimson Tide also ranks a respectable No. 22 in terms of strength of schedule.
ESPN’s Joe Lunardi projects Alabama as a No. 11 seed playing against No. 6 seed Kansas State in his latest NCAA Tournament projection. CBS Sports’ Jerry Palm also has Alabama as a No. 11 seed against No. 6 seed Cincinnati in his bracket projection.
After hosting Auburn Tuesday night, Alabama will wrap up regular-season play with a trip to Arkansas on Saturday at 5 p.m.
“I think the players are well aware that we have two games left,” Johnson said. “I think from their mindset, especially our seniors, they want to go out on top here at home. They understand just control what you can control. That’s not just coaches talk, that’s just a fact. We’ve got to take care of this game at home and try to play much better than we did in our last game on both ends of the floor."
