Georgia Snaps Alabama’s Eight-Game Win Streak in First Game of March

ATHENS, Ga. - The Crimson Tide fell victim to another player having a career performance due to the Tide's struggling defensive play, with Kanon Catchings scoring a career-high 32 points, as Alabama fell in the trap game to the Georgia Bulldogs on the road, 98-88.

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Alabama head coach Nate Oats identified the potential trap against the Bulldogs in his press conference on Monday morning.

"Obviously, the win on Saturday was pretty emotionally taxing to make a comeback on the road," Oats said during Monday's press conference. "I think the biggest job here is we've got to get our guys' minds right, and to focus on that, we still have a lot to play for with these two games left.

"An immature team would come off a road win at Tennessee, look forward to your big rival game, and skip the Georgia game. That would be a huge mistake, because Georgia is a very good team. [You have to be] fully locked in to beat them."

Oats said that Alabama's three biggest wins on the season were against St. John's (103-96), Illinois (90-86), and Tennessee (71-69). The Tide fell in all three games following big wins on the season after Tuesday night's loss to Georgia, which dropped Alabama to 22-8 and 12-5 in conference play.

"We failed those two tests coming off really good wins. Now we're coming off a really good win and have another test," Oats said.

Alabama failed the test, leading for just 3:41 of the 40-minute contest, and didn't lead again after the 10:55 mark in the first half. Alabama never led by more than two, while Georgia's largest lead ballooned to 14 points with 14:11 left in the second half.

The Tide's leading scorer was sophomore Labaron Philon, who notched his 17th 20-point performance on Tuesday with 26 against the Bulldogs. Despite Philon's big performance, Alabama spread the ball more effectively to multiple scorers than it did in the 71-69 victory over Tennessee, where Philon, Latrell Wrightsell Jr., and Aden Holloway scored all but six points in the win over the Vols. Four players scored in double figures for Alabama on Tuesday, with Wrightsell scoring 19, Holloway scoring 15, and Sherrell scoring 12 to go along with Philon's production.

Georgia forward Kanon Catchings exploded on offense and was a menace for the Dawgs defensively against Alabama, with 32 points (career high) on 12-20 shooting from the floor and 7-13 shooting from three-point range while collecting the second-most rebounds of any player in the game with six. Georgia collected 10 more rebounds than Alabama did (40-30), scored six more points off of turnovers than the Tide (21-15), and dominated second-chance points opportunities (25-9) and points in the paint (40-18).

Georgia snaps Alabama's eight-game win streak, dating back to Alabama's 100-77 loss to Florida on February 1, dropping the Crimson Tide to 22-8 (12-5 in SEC play). The loss almost guarantees Alabama won't be a three-seed in the NCAA tournament, while Georgia (a projected nine-seed in Joe Lunardi's latest bracketology) likely locked up its spot in the big dance after defeating the No. 2 team in the SEC standings. Alabama was riding high, but now it will need to right the ship before heading to Nashville for the SEC Tournament and the NCAA Tournament a week later.

Alabama's final game of the regular season will come inside Coleman Coliseum on Saturday, March 7, against the Auburn Tigers. Tip-off is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. CT.

Wyatt Fulton is the Tide 100.9 DME and Brand Manager, primarily covering Alabama Crimson Tide football and men's basketball. For more Crimson Tide coverage, follow Wyatt on X (Formerly known as Twitter) at @FultonW_.