The gauntlet stretch to end the season hasn’t been kind to Alabama men’s basketball.
The Crimson Tide, facing all ranked opponents to end the regular season, has lost four of six games during that stretch. No. 7 Alabama is looking to avoid a three-game losing streak by beating No. 1 Auburn on Saturday (1:30 p.m, ESPN) at Neville Arena.
“We’ve got to get our confidence back that we can play with the best teams in the country,” Alabama coach Nate Oats said Friday. “We’ve shown we could. We knew this stretch was going to be tough, but we didn’t expect to take as many losses as we had. We just try to encourage our guys to focus on the stuff they can control. Let’s worry about that and let the final score take care of itself at the end.”
It started with a loss to No. 1 Auburn at home on Feb. 15. Then Alabama went on the road and lost 110-98 to Missouri. The Crimson Tide rebounded with wins over Kentucky and Mississippi State. But since then, Alabama has lost two more: First to Tennessee on the road and then Florida at home.
