Short-handed Tide no match for Kentucky

LEXINGTON, Ky. | Even at full strength, the University of Alabama basketball team’s offense has been sporadic so far this season.

On Saturday, with its main player absent from Rupp Arena, the Crimson Tide simply lacked the firepower to hang around.

After an inspired performance for the first 15 minutes, Alabama’s offense ground to a halt and Kentucky pulled away for a 62-52 win. The 52-point total was Alabama’s lowest output in over four years, since a 45-42 win at Georgia in January 2004.

“Let’s face it, 52 points is not going to win you a lot of basketball games,” Crimson Tide head coach Mark Gottfried said.

The Crimson Tide was without power forward Richard Hendrix, its leading scorer and rebounder. Hendrix traveled to Lexington with the team, but was already starting to feel the effects of the flu on the flight to Kentucky, wearing a surgical mask on the plane to prevent spreading his ailment to other players.

“When I met with him this morning at breakfast, he said he couldn’t go,” Gottfried said.

“It’s a different game without Richard, but I was really proud of the way the young guys [Yamene Coleman and freshman Justin Knox] competed. We did some things diffrently, obviously, because the ball goes in to Richard so much in our offense. But I thought Justin and Yamene handled things well. We just couldn’t generate enough offense.”

Over the first 16 minutes, the Tide played at an emotional peak, building a 23-15 lead with six minutes remaining in the first half.

From that point, though, the Tide stagnated. Alabama scored just 17 points over the next 22 minutes.

Alabama was shut out over the last 3:40 of the half as Kentucky closed with a 13-4 run, taking its first lead on Joe Crawford’s leaning jump shot with seven second in the half.

“We just had too many breakdowns on the ball screen in the first half,” UK coach Billy Gillespie said. “I felt that was better in the second half.”

“I thought they guard [Mykal] Riley much closer in the second half, and their big guys defended well in the post,” Gottfried said. “Even when we got it around the basket, it wasn’t easy.”

Alabama shot just 28 percent from the floor in the second half.

The Crimson Tide’s last gasp probably came with 10:43 remaining. Alabama had cut the UK lead to three points, 38-35, on a steal and dunk by Mykal Riley. On the ensuing possession, Coleman blocked a shot attempt by UK freshman Patrick Patterson but the ball bounced to Ramel Bradley, open beyond the 3-point arc. He hit the 20-footer as the shot clock expired, upping the UK lead to 41-35. Alabama was never able to pull to a one-possession game after that.

“That was a big shot, a momentum shot,” Gottfried said.

Bradley led all scorers with 19 points. Coleman and Knox helped hold Patterson, UK’s star freshman, to 12 points and six rebounds, both figures substantially below his season average.

“I thought their replacements played great,” Gillespie said. “I never believe that stuff until the game is over. With four minutes to go, I was still looking for him. But they’ve got plenty of athletes over there. I wish he would have played. I didn’t want him to be sick. Sometimes guys rally around in that situation and they played extremely hard.”

Both Coleman (10 points) and Knox (six points) set new career highs in scoring.

Riley matched Bradley’s 19-point output to lead Alabama in scoring.

The loss dropped Alabama to 2-7 in the league. It was the Crimson Tide’s 10th loss in its last 11 SEC road games. Kentucky is now 12-9 overall, 6-2 in SEC play.

Alabama returns home to play Ole Miss Wednesday. Gottfried said in his post-game press conference that Hendrix’ status for that game was undetermined.

Reach Cecil Hurt at cecil.hurt@tuscaloosanews.com or 205-722-0225.