LOUISVILLE – It was a rare moment in this game, a player as alone as he might be on a vacant playground with only the goal to defeat. That was Jaedon Ledee with a little more than 4 minutes between his San Diego State Aztecs and a victory that would upset no one but the Alabama Crimson Tide.
It was a flash of beauty in an NCAA Tournament South Region semifinal game filled with basketball brutality, on a night when neither team could approach shooting 40 percent and the 3-point line was on the court mostly for decoration. Ledee began to advance from near the top of the key, with forward Noah Clowney guarding his path to the rim. As Ledee surged, Clowney fell to the floor on the left, gesturing that a charge should be called against his opponent. No whistle blew.
So, yes, in an instant, there would be an uncontested slam.
When it arrived, it was glorious.
And the Crimson Tide were finished. Down seven points, victory was not necessarily beyond their reach from a technical standpoint, but practically the time that remained was about demonstrating they would compete to the end and hope the No. 5 seed Aztecs would crumble. (As if.) Even if Alabama could find a way to shut them out for the time that remained, it wouldn’t be easy to score enough to close the gap. They left as 71-64 losers, officially the third of four No. 1 seeds to depart but with Houston soon to follow through the exit door.
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“We recruit, and we say our goal is to win a national championship. So we can’t act surprised at an opportunity to advance to the Final Four,” SDSU coach Brian Dutcher told reporters. “It’s not just words to get them to come here. It’s words we believe in. That’s why we celebrated, but we’re not going to over-celebrate, because there’s another step to be had.”
The crowd at KFC Yum! Center consisted largely of Alabama fans, so the reaction to the departure of the No. 1 overall seed in the 2023 edition of March Madness, was not greeted with the same sort of glee it was, say, on Twitter.
Alabama coach Nate Oats attempted to define the Tide season by their Southeastern Conference regular-season championship, SEC Tournament title and advancement to the Sweet 16, but there is no avoiding it will be remembered more commonly for the circumstances surrounding the death of young Jamea Harris, for the revelations made by a Tuscaloosa police detective during a hearing regarding the case that placed Miller at the scene after delivering the gun.
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Miller never was publicly punished by the University of Alabama, by the Alabama athletic department or the Tide basketball program. He played 31 minutes against the Aztecs, scored 9 points and shot 3-of-19 from the field. It was his 20th game since that night on The Strip in Tuscaloosa, his 10th since the detective’s testimony. It will be his last for Alabama, as he almost certainly will enter the NBA Draft and be among the first players selected.
“It’s definitely tough, just playing around these guys, working hard in every practice – to fall short, it’s a bad feeling right now,” Miller told reporters. “But I feel like our bond is too close to break. So I feel like after this we’re probably going to go and make our bond even stronger.”
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Eight different Aztecs scored, and nine played at least 14 minutes. Only Trammell went 30. Dutcher explained the difference between having a lot of players who are capable and having a “deep” team.
“The issue is not having a deep bench. The issue is everybody buying into a deep bench. They’re not crying when they come out,” he said. “We took the starting five out three or four minutes into the second half, before the first TV timeout. In some programs, that would be a disaster. You’d have to sit there and massage egos for 10 minutes to get them ready to play when they go back in. This team is not like that.”
San Diego State had to recover, though, from a storm of Alabama excellence directly after halftime. The Tide charged from a 5-point halftime deficit to 9-point lead with 11:40 left, with big man Charles Bediako dominating the interior and Miller contributing his one significant burst of the game: a 3-pointer and two free throws.
Oats had spent a lot of Thursday afternoon’s session with the media offering unsolicited reminders to everyone how significant the Crimson Tide’s defense is, as if we all had somehow lost access to KenPom.com. They were ranked No. 3 in the nation in defensive efficiency and had begun the day as the best remaining team in the tournament at that end of the floor.
He said it because he knew many would be focused on the Aztecs’ fourth-ranked defense, and he wanted to remind his group they were maybe even a smidge more likely to wreck an opposing attack. Except at that moment in the game.
“Just because we’ve got an experienced team – they’ve been in a million of these situations over their careers,” SDSU coach Brian Dutcher told reporters. “They didn’t shy away from the moment. They weren’t nervous. They just had a confidence about them.”
Darrion Trammell, in his first year as a transfer from Seattle University, who averaged 9.5 points during the regular season and had not breached the 20-point mark in the New Year, scored eight consecutive points to close the Aztecs’ deficit to a point. It was part of a 12-0 run that put SDSU in front for good. Just like that. It took less than 5 minutes.
“I think it was more of a feeling,” Trammell told the Sporting News. “I feel like throughout the whole week I’ve been prepping for what kind of coverage they were in, as far as ball screens, and that’s what I’ve been working on all week. At this point in the year, you kind of have to have the confidence that you’re going to knock those shots down that you’ve been working on.”
Aztecs star Matt Bradley, a first-team All-Mountain West selection, had missed each of his seven shots to that point. He had been the only double-figure scorer on the team through the season. With 21 points that tied his season high, Trammell assured that would not be an issue. Bradley eventually scored four points that mattered, including a layup through traffic that defined this game in a way Ledee’s dunk surely did not.
“It’s believing. We’re a very good team,” Trammell said. “I feel like Dutch talked about it a lot: our depth and just the DNA of our team. I feel like we can beat anyone in the country.”
And on this night, they did.