For a team that likes a fast pace, the sound of a whistle isn’t exactly conducive to Alabama’s style.
The 81-66 loss at Arkansas spoke to that.
Alabama (18-6, 13-2 SEC) was called for 32 fouls — its most in more than three years — on a night frustration boiled over. Senior John Petty was ejected with 1:01 left after being called for his second technical foul arguing a call.
Arkansas finished with 43 free throw attempts to Alabama’s eight.
Crimson Tide coach Nate Oats answered a few questions about the impact of the fouls on Alabama’s loss in the postgame. He said Alabama players were, at times, too worried about the officiating.
“Well we have no control over the officiating,” Oats said. “So if you’re going to worry about stuff you have no control over and you’re not very good at the stuff you do have control over and we weren’t very good at that stuff tonight. We have to quit worrying about the officiating. They’re going to officiate the game the way they’re going to officiate it and we’ve got to worry about what we can control and we have to do a better job of that.”
Oats pointed to the Tide’s subpar 3-point shooting as a factor as the visitors went 4-for-16 from long range after halftime.
The disparity in foul shots, however, was uncommonly high.
What did Oats think of that?
“I’m not trying to give any money back to anybody but I’m not going to talk too much about it,” Oats said, referencing the potential fines he could receive from the SEC for criticizing officials. “But part of it is, I mean, we were fouling some. We have to move our feet and get into position. We’ve got to try to not foul on 3-point shooters.
“We shot a lot more 3s than them but I thought a lot of our 3s came off drives and kicks and I thought maybe on some drives, we … we have to do a better job of trying to get fouled on our drives like they were getting fouled on their drives, I guess.”
Arkansas coach Eric Musselman said the 27-3 edge his team had in made foul shots was clearly huge in the game.
“We felt like attacking the rim was something we really wanted to do,” Mussleman said. “We didn’t want to settle. We didn’t want to jack up threes. We didn’t want quick shots. I thought we did a good job of understanding the shot clock for the most part. To my knowledge, we took maybe two shots that I was not happy with. We had a great few days of preparation as well. Just proud of the execution on both sides of the ball.”
Starters Herbert Jones and Jaden Shackelford fouled out while Petty got sent to the showers early with the technical. Oats was asked about what happened with Petty’s final T.
“They had him in a trap. John didn’t think he fouled him. I didn’t either,” Oats said. “I have to look at the replay, I didn’t see for sure. I think when the ref called the foul on him, he was a little frustrated. I think he felt like he got bumped on something earlier that didn’t get called. It’s a tough game. There’s a lot of contact and we got called for a lot of fouls and he said something he shouldn’t have said to the refs. I don’t know what it was but obviously he shouldn’t have said it.”
Before getting called for 32 fouls Wednesday, the previous season high was 27 in the December win over Ole Miss. Alabama had been called for more than 20 fouls in just seven of the previous 23 games this season.
Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.
