The big bodies Alabama added this offseason showed up in a major way Friday night.
In a 101-86 win over Arkansas State in Tuscaloosa, the Crimson Tide overwhelmed the Red Wolves on the glass and posted numbers that stood out even by Nate Oats’ standards. Alabama collected 25 offensive rebounds, the most in the Nate Oats era and the best mark in game logs that go back to the 2004-05 season. The Tide finished with 58 total rebounds.
That kind of night was exactly what Oats had been chasing after Alabama’s Sweet 16 loss to eventual national champion Michigan in the 2025-26 NCAA Tournament. After that game, he made it plain that “we’ve got to get bigger.” Alabama responded by bringing in nine newcomers on a 15-man roster, with 12 players listed at 6-foot-6 or taller.
The early returns have been uneven, though. Oats said after three preseason exhibitions that “rebounding still isn’t fixed,” and the regular-season opener against Sam Houston didn’t fully change that feeling. But against Arkansas State, Alabama’s size and effort took over.
Amari Allen led the way with 13 rebounds and recorded the fifth triple-double in program history. Brandon Garrison added a double-double and finished with 10 rebounds, while Keitenn Bristow grabbed nine and Jamarion Davis-Fleming pulled down seven. Those four players accounted for 19 of Alabama’s 25 offensive boards, fueling 31 second-chance points.
“We’ve been emphasizing our rebounding, and our rebounding saved us," Oats said during his postgame press conference. "We had 20 O-boards in the first half.
We couldn’t make a shot for a long time. We got to the glass.
I think we had 24 second-chance points in the first half. I did feel like we let up a little bit in the second half.”
Oats also pointed to the volume of missed shots and the pace of the game as part of the reason the numbers got so big.
“We had 20 in a half. That’s a lot.
You’ve got to have a lot of misses to have 20 O-boards in a half," Oats said. "Probably a combination of we didn’t turn the ball over that much in the first half, so we got the shots up, and we didn’t make any of them.
But we did do a good job because at the half there was 35 rebounds to have on that end, so we had 20 out of 35.
"That’s what happens when you can’t make a shot. We shot 29 percent.
I guess, we did have seven turnovers, but both teams were willing to play fast. There was a lot of rebounds to be had, and we ended up with 20 of them.”
Alabama also played without Jaxon Richardson because of an upper extremity injury. Oats said Richardson is “probably our best offensive rebounder.”
The rebounding explosion came on the heels of another eye-catching performance earlier in the week, when Alabama forced Sam Houston into 23 turnovers, the most takeaways by UA since 2012.
Two games into the 2026-27 season, the Crimson Tide have already stacked up historic numbers through physicality and pressure. The question now is what record they’ll chase next.
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