BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – The Alabama men’s basketball team (8-5) defeated the Liberty Flames, 101-56, Saturday afternoon inside Legacy Arena at the BJCC in the 2023 C.M. Newton Classic. With the win, head coach Nate Oats won his 100th career game at Alabama becoming the fastest coach in program history to reach 100 career wins.
Latrell Wrightsell Jr. led the Crimson Tide scoring with a season-high 19 points while also hitting a season-high five three-pointers. Five other UA players, Mark Sears (16), Aaron Estrada (13), Grant Nelson (12), Rylan Griffen (10) and Sam Walters (10) also scored in double figures. Estrada added his second career double-double, adding 10 rebounds and eight assists to close out non-conference play.
Saturday’s contest marks the second time in as many games that Alabama has had at least six players reach double figures. The Flames (10-4) were led by Kaden Metheny, scoring 14 points and grabbed four rebounds.
Head Coach Nate Oats Postgame Comments
“That was a good win. It is good to win the last non-conference game of the season, they’re (Liberty) 49th in the NET rankings coming into today, so hopefully they will play well in their league to get that NET ranking up and keep it in the top-50 and it will end up being a Quad-1 win. We have played plenty of Quad-1 teams in a tough schedule, but we just have not got a lot of wins. We made a big point of emphasis on the defensive side of the ball, we were switching on all ball screens, it gave us some tough matchups on switches and left some good shooters open. All-in-all I thought it was a pretty good game, our defense kept them out of what they do well, we gave them 10 threes made and they shot 35 total which is too many. Our energy was good, our rebounding was good and that was a huge point of emphasis, making free throws and being good on the glass. We shot well from the free throw line, and they only shot six, while we dominated on the glass. Some things that we have been stressing we did well; offensively the ball kept moving against a quality defensive team in Liberty. This might be the most efficient an offense has been against a Ritchie McKay-coach team in a while. One through five that is a good defensive team. We all knew how good of a shooter Latrell (Wrightsell Jr.) is and it’s good to see them go in for him and have a big game for us. Aaron (Estrada) having the first double-double of the…
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