No. 18 Alabama didn’t just beat Oakland on Monday night in Tuscaloosa. It buried the Golden Grizzlies 109-86, moved to 3-0 on the 2026-27 season, and put a few different parts of its game on display in the process.
The biggest headline came from the perimeter, where Alabama was scorching. The Crimson Tide knocked down 24 of 46 shots from deep, a 52.2 percent clip, while taking only 16 attempts from two-point range.
Jemison was a major part of that barrage, tying a career high with 20 points on 7-for-7 shooting. Six of those makes came from beyond the arc.
Jemison’s growth has been one of the early themes of the season, and this game gave it another spotlight. He spent plenty of time last year being asked to work from the corners, and that role is still there.
The difference now is that he’s making teams pay. After the game, Jemison and Amari Allen laughed when asked how many corner threes he takes in practice, and he answered “a lot” three times.
Alabama got another late burst from freshman guard Anderson Diaz, who reclassified from the 2027 class and is the age of a senior in high school. Diaz finished with a new career-high nine points, all of them coming at the end of the game. He went 3 of 4 from three-point range, and Oakland coach Greg Kampe admitted Diaz wasn’t on his radar before the final stretch.
“The little guy at the end made three-in-a-row,” Kampe said. “Like, who’s he?
He was not even on our scouting report. Who’s he?
And he goes out and makes three-in-a-row.”
If the shooting was the easy part to celebrate, the rebounding was the part that should stick in Alabama’s craw. The Tide had just come off a game against Arkansas State where it grabbed 25 offensive rebounds and finished with 58 total boards, both major signs of progress after the offseason emphasis on getting bigger. Against Oakland, though, the Golden Grizzlies flipped the script.
Oakland won the rebound battle 37-31 and owned the offensive glass 21-7. That kind of margin is hard to ignore, even in a game Alabama won comfortably. The Golden Grizzlies only turned those 21 offensive rebounds into 12 second-chance points, while Alabama scored eight second-chance points of its own, but Nate Oats made it clear the issue still needs work.
“I thought Oakland exposed a lot of things, maybe not a lot, but at least some things that we got to work on, rebounding being the biggest one,” Oats said during the postgame press conference. “You know, [Oakland’s Chris] Fields ends up with seven O-boards.
It’s a problem. Our entire team only had seven O-boards.
There wasn’t as many to get, but they had 16 defensive rebounds.
“So our offensive rebounding rate wasn’t near what we wanted, and our defensive rebounding rate was terrible. So we’ve got to do a better job on the glass for sure.”
Still, there was plenty to like about the way Alabama moved the ball. Kampe summed it up bluntly after the game: “They passed the ball as good as you can pass the ball. They were as unselfish as a team could possibly be.”
That showed up in the box score. Alabama tied a school record with 30 assists, and the ball movement was there from the start.
Seven of the first nine baskets were assisted, with each pass coming from a different player. By halftime, 17 of Alabama’s 20 field goals had been assisted, and only nine of the team’s buckets for the night came without an assist.
Oats pointed to the backcourt as the engine for that rhythm.
“I think a lot of it’s the ball movement,” Oats said. “I think it starts at the top with your kind of starting backcourt and (Aden) Holloway and Amari, and I thought those guys really get the ball movement right out of the gate.
They end up combining for eight assists and only one turnover. I thought they set the tone, and then I think everybody else kind of followed.
“The mudita is great. We’ve been really trying to work on just getting the ball moving, not having it stick. I thought it was pretty good tonight.”
There was one more area where Alabama showed a different edge: rim protection. The Tide blocked 10 shots against Oakland, with Keitenn Bristow leading the way again.
Bristow, who played only 10 games last season before an injury ended his year, has quickly become one of the early surprises of this team. Brandon Garrison even called him the team’s “biggest sleeper.”
Bristow backed that up Monday. He recorded three blocks for the third straight game, all of them in the first half, and added nine points and three rebounds in 11 first-half minutes. He played only three minutes after the break, but his impact was already felt.
Oats said the shot-blocking spread across the roster was a welcome sign.
“So for him to have three, [Brandon Garrison] to have two, and a slew of other guys to have one each, I thought was was great,” Oats said. “We’ve had two defenses ranked third in the country here.
First one had Herb Jones, who was a big part of that, and he’d kind of come from the weak side, get some blocks a lot. And the second time was when we had Charles (Bediako) in the middle, and then we had (Noah) Clowney at the four spot.
“And so when you can get a guy at the four spot like Clowney, and now Keitenn’s doing it, and then Jaxon (Richardson) can kind of do a little bit like Herb, so maybe we get this group to kind of combine more wing, like Jaxon can protect the rim, Keitenn can protect the rim at the four. I think it really helps you, especially those guys can move, react to breakdowns, get over there, make some plays.
“Jaxon’s just been out so much with the the injuries, he wasn’t able to get a block, but I think he can really give us some more protection, kind of coming from that wing spot, too. I mean, it’s been great getting from Keitenn these first three games.”
The one sloppier note was turnovers. Alabama gave it away 12 times, which was still fewer than Oakland’s 15, but not the kind of number a team wants in a game it controlled. The Golden Grizzlies turned those mistakes into 15 points.
Even with that blemish, the night belonged to Alabama’s depth, its shot-making, and a few emerging pieces that are starting to matter fast.
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