Alabama basketball sleepwalks through the first half, wakes up, and escapes out of North Dakota with a win over quadrant four opponent North Dakota.
Alabama basketball, despite trailing at the half and playing its worst it has all season, stepped up in a big way with a second-half surge to escape with a 97-90 over North Dakota on the road.
Grant Nelson won the hard hat in this game.
“We played awful, pretty much the whole game. We got yelled at like we should have. I’m sure we’ll continue to get yelled at the rest of this week,” said Grant Nelson.
Takeaway #1: Treysen Eaglestaff dominates
Alabama had no answer in guarding Treysen Eaglestaff, the Summit League leading scorer, who had a career night with 40 points on 8-18 shooting from three. The Tide tried putting multiple guys on him, but Eaglestaff kept finding his shot. Every time Alabama got its lead extended out in the second half, Eaglestaff hit a big contested three to keep his team in the game.
“That was the best individual performance someone has had on us all season,” said coach Nate Oats praising Eaglestaff.
Takeaway #2: Alabama first-half struggles
Alabama’s slow starts have continued throughout the start of the non-conference trailing at the half down three. Whether it was live ball turnovers or struggles from three, Alabama could not get anything going. The Tide had 13 turnovers in the first half and needs to get it fixed quickly before the gauntlet begins known as SEC play, at the beginning of January.
Alabama basketball had a new starting lineup and is still trying to tinker with it along with its deep bench and finding what works and what does not work and the lineup tonight with Derrion Reid and Jarin Stevenson both starting together did not work out to start the game as North Dakota handled Alabama’s length really well all night long.
Takeaway #3: Grant Nelson homecoming game
Grant Nelson, who grew up close to the North Dakota campus, got to return home in front of hundreds of family and friends and put on a show. Nelson had a team-high 23 points to go with 10 rebounds for another double-double on the season. North Dakota had no answer in guarding Nelson, who was able to get to the lane at will finishing tough lay-ins and dunks.
Next up for Alabama (9-2): vs. Kent State (8-2) -Dec. 22 at 1 p.m. EST
Next up for North Dakota (4-9): vs. South Dakota Tech (1-11) -Dec. 20 at 8 p.m. EST