Alabama Basketball Falls to Western Kentucky, 73-71

A late goaltending call on John Petty Jr. was the difference in a back-and-forth contest against the Hilltoppers

Joey Blackwell | Dec 19, 2020

Alabama coach Nate Oats wanted a tough opponent after its game with No. 6 Houston was canceled due to coronavirus issues with the Cougars.

He got it when Western Kentucky served as a worthy fill-in opponent on Saturday.

Junior center Charles Bassey notched a double-double with 27 points and 12 rebounds as the Hilltoppers pulled off a 73-71 victory at Coleman Coliseum.

The game-winning points were scored on a goaltending call by Alabama senior wing John Petty Jr. with under a minute to go. With the Crimson Tide unable to execute a final play, the clock ran out.

"Tough loss," Oats said. "We have not played well early in the season here to be honest with you. Offensively we've struggled a lot. Our assist/turnovers were the wrong way — seven to 19 the wrong way.

"That's a major problem when you turn the ball over 19 times."

Western Kentucky was able to turn the turnovers into 21 points. Additionally, the Hilltoppers also out-rebounded the Crimson Tide 38-35.

"Rebounding ended up being an issue again," Oats said. "It seems like it's an every other game thing. When you make a big deal out of it, we fix it like we did against Furman. The game before against Clemson it was terrible and now we're back to where we get out-rebounded."

Senior wing Herb Jones led Alabama offensively with 16 points, while graduate student forward Jordan Bruner had 14 and sophomore guard Jaden Shackelford scored 12.

Petty registered the most rebounds for the Crimson Tide with seven.

Western Kentucky led most of the game, but was never able to pull away.

Down 67-62 with just over five minutes remaining, the Crimson Tide went on an 8-0 run to take a brief lead. The Hilltoppers countered and a Petty free throw tied the game at 71 apiece with 51 seconds remaining.

"There's some stuff we gotta clean up," Oats said. "It's got to be an everyday thing. Obviously the shooting. With the way we play we've got to shoot the ball better."

Alabama dropped to 4-3, while Western Kentucky improved to 6-2.

Alabama will make its way back to Coleman Coliseum on Tuesday night to face East Tennessee State (7:30 p.m. CT, SEC Network+).

Published Dec 19, 2020

JOEY BLACKWELL

Joey Blackwell is an award-winning journalist and assistant editor for BamaCentral and has covered the Crimson Tide since 2018. He primarily covers Alabama football, men's basketball and baseball, but also covers a wide variety of other sports. Joey earned his bachelor's degree in History from Birmingham-Southern College in 2014 before graduating summa cum laude from the University of Alabama in 2020 with a degree in News Media. He has also been featured in a variety of college football magazines, including Lindy's Sports and BamaTime.