Tide turns back late push by Broncs

TUSCALOOSA | Before heading off on its Las Vegas weekend, the University of Alabama men’s basketball team had a mundane task to complete.

The Crimson Tide got the job done, dispatching Texas-Pan American in workmanlike fashion with a 75-65 win in the second round of the Findlay Toyota Las Vegas Classic at Coleman Coliseum on Wednesday night. The tournament now moves to Nevada for the semifinal round with Alabama meeting Missouri State on Saturday night.

Alabama (7-3) led by as many as 21 points in the late going against UTPA before allowing the Broncs to make the margin more respectable with an 11-0 run over the final three-and-a-half minutes.

“I think we took care of business [and] did what we needed to do,” Crimson Tide coach Mark Gottfried said.

“At the end, we didn’t finish as well as we would like, but we shot 54 percent, we moved the ball well and it was a good win.”

Alabama built a first-half lead of as many as 13 points even after Richard Hendrix went to the bench with foul trouble with seven minutes to go in the half. The Crimson Tide saw most of that lead evaporate in the final two minutes as UT-Pan American closed with a 7-0 run to cut the Tide’s halftime edge to 40-34.

The Broncs whittled the lead down to as few as five points, 42-37, with 18:34 to play.

Defense took over for Alabama, though. The Tide limited the Broncs to just four points over the next eight minutes, going on a 15-4 run that put the game away.

The Tide’s largest lead came at 75-54 on a pair of Hendrix free throws with 3:30 remaining.

Alabama’s foul shooting, a trouble spot all season, stayed under 60 percent as UA made just seven of 12 from the line.

Hendrix scored 18 points and grabbed eight rebounds in 24 minutes of playing time. Mykal Riley added 14 points, 11 of those coming in the first half. Alonzo Gee scored 11 points.

Zach Trader had 15 points for Texas-Pan American (6-8), while Brian Burrell added 14.

Almost all of the Crimson Tide playing time went to a core group of eight players, although Gottfried said he was not limiting the Tide rotation yet.

“Although there is starting to be some separation, those other guys need to stay ready to play,” he said. “I don’t think anything is in concrete, but I think our rotation is pretty good right now.”

Brandon Hollinger, who played 20 minutes off the bench and scored 10 points, said he could see a rotation emerging.

“I think Coach is getting down to the rotation we are going to use in SEC play,” Hollinger said. “We shot the ball well. We played as a team. We showed a lot of people that other guys can play on our team, not just Richard Hendrix and Alonzo Gee.

“Heading to Vegas is going to help us. We need to play bigger teams and better teams to get ready for the SEC.”

“Tournament-style play is going to be good for us,” Hendrix said. “We need to find out where we are as a team.”

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