Nate Oats needed to re-recruit his leading scorer out of the transfer portal over the summer, but Jaden Shackelford’s decision to return in Tuscaloosa seems to paying off for both sides.
Shackelford scored a team-high 20 points in Alabama’s 86-59 win Friday night over Oakland, passing the 1,000-point mark for his career while continuing to establish himself as the 14th-ranked Tide’s top scorer.
The junior, who is averaging a team-best 19.5 points through four games, also won Oats’ hard hat award for the game for his “blue-collar points” gained for his effort.
“He was really locked in and playing hard on both ends of the floor,” Oats said. “I kind of tell our guys, ‘Lose yourself in the game. Play hard and the offense will come.’ That’s what happened with him tonight.”
The third-year coach extended similar praise to the rest of his team, which recovered from an ugly Tuesday win over South Alabama to win more comfortably over its Horizon League foe Friday in Coleman Coliseum.
“I thought that was our most complete game of the year,” he said. “We’ve been talking to our team about playing both sides of the ball for an entire 40 minutes. I thought we got as close as we got all year. I’m really happy with our defensive effort. I thought offensively, we didn’t really make shots -- we didn’t shoot it well from three -- but we were able to put up 86 points on a tough zone [defense].”
Oats felt Alabama played well offensively in a win last week over South Dakota State, then used its defense to hold off South Alabama this week. But putting both sides of the ball together was the focus in practice late this week.
“Everybody was laser-focused these last two days,” guard Jahvon Quinerly said. “That just went to show in how we played tonight.”
Quinerly scored eight of Alabama’s first 10 points to avoid the slow starts that have been problematic early this season for the Tide. He finished with 19 points and was joined by two freshmen, JD Davison and Charles Bediako, in double digits. Davison (10 points) and Bediako (12 points) combined for a first-half alley-oop that energized the Coleman Coliseum crowd at the end of a four-game opening home stand.
Shackelford shot 7-of-17 and 3-of-11 from three-point range as he continued to put a 1-for-14 exhibition game performance in his rearview mirror.
“Me and him talked after the exhibition,” Oats said. “He was up here shooting late one night. I said I’m not really stressed. You’re not going to play that bad again. That’s not who you are. We’ve all seen what you can do for two years. I think that gave him a little extra motivation to be in the gym.
“He’s been in the gym a lot. He’s a hard-working kid. He’s really good. He’s trying to be our leader. He’s trying to play the right way.”
The junior was called for two flop warnings by the officials in Friday night’s game, with the second drawing a Class B technical foul. Oakland was called for a flop warning of its own.
“I didn’t even realize they gave us the warning,” Oats said. “I didn’t know when the warning came and all the sudden the second one and it was a Class B technical. We’ll have to watch for that a little more.”
Alabama (14-0) does not play again at home until Dec. 11. It travels next week to Orlando, opening the ESPN Events Invitational against Iona on Thursday. It will play either Drake or Belmont on Friday, and has a potential meeting with Kansas next Sunday depending on the results of the tournament.
Mike Rodak is an Alabama beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @mikeroda
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November 20, 2021 at 11:05AM
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Alabama plays its ‘most complete game’ for fourth win - al.com
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