Alabama players preview NCAA Tournament game vs. 5-seed Texas Tech

TAMPA, Fla. — Alabama basketball players Amari Allen, Aiden Sherrell and Latrell Wrightsell spoke to reporters at Benchmark International Arena on Sunday, previewing the Crimson Tide’s Round of 32 matchup with 5-seed Texas Tech. Here is everything the Alabama trio said.

Q. Amari and Aiden, you guys have obviously had ups and downs on the glass, but how did you feel about the performance on the boards yesterday?

AMARI ALLEN: I’d say at times we can always rebound better, but Rell gave us 15 rebounds and pretty much all season long that’s been one of our weaknesses and he’s carried us pretty much every single game in that category. I feel like I can step up and give him a little more help on that but it’s a point of emphasis and we’re really focusing on it.

Q. Do you think playing a slower team yesterday against Hofstra leaves you better prepared for facing Texas Tech on Sunday?

LATRELL WRIGHTSELL JR.: I feel like we’re prepared for many situations. We try to practice many situations, and Hofstra, they played slow, and Texas Tech is like a really good team, and they can mix it up. We’re just pretty much prepared for everything.

We try to do different scenarios in practice to emulate each different play style, even though we like to play really fast, we know that teams like to play slow, and there’s teams in our conference that do that. So we’re kind of used to pretty much a lot of play styles.

Q. Texas Tech has a deep guard group there. All of them can score it. When you’re facing off against a team like that with a lot of options, how do you go about defending them?

AIDEN SHERRELL: I would say we’ve just got to get adjusted to how they play really. We play so many teams throughout the season that have a great guard play, and at the end of the day, we had to get adjusted. We’re going to have to do the same, especially when it’s a game that’s win or go home.

Q. It seems like you’ve really emerged in the second half lately. What do you think is creating these slower starts in the first half?

AMARI ALLEN: I’m not sure. Typically I let the game come to me. I don’t try to force things. I’m not too focused on scoring or any of that. When I feel like I can get in the flow and get some points, obviously it helps, but my main focus is coming in, trying to play great defense, rebound, all that, and what comes with the scoring comes with it.

Q. A bit of a slow start in yesterday’s game. Is there anything you guys think you can do to kind of prevent that and bottle up what you had in the second half to start out tomorrow?

LATRELL WRIGHTSELL JR.: Yeah. I think we came out with a sense of urgency and I think we dropped it when they went on a run. But I believe just keeping a sense of urgency throughout every possession, and just taking one possession at a time, no matter what the score says, just winning each possession is how we’re going to overcome that, and if we do that, then we’ll be pretty successful.

But Coach Oats always emphasizes that, just take one possession at a time, and sometimes we let it slip, but if we continue to take one possession at a time, we’ll be right where we want to be.

Q. What did the last week of practice look like as far as obviously most of the focus being on Hofstra? How much have you guys looked at Texas Tech before today?

AIDEN SHERRELL: Our coaches, like they had a plan for who they figured we were going to face in this tournament, so they had us prepared for whatever situation. Our practices going up into this tournament has just been very competitive, like we’re competing, and although we had that loss in the SEC Tournament, we had to look away from that and gather each other together and focus on making a long run in this tournament.

Q. Aiden, you had two double-doubles all season. You come into the first game of the NCAA Tournament and you post a 15-15 double-double. What will be the key to replicating that type of performance in the round of 32?

AIDEN SHERRELL: The key will be just trying to make the winning plays for sure, just doing whatever it takes to help my teammates succeed and help us win. Just giving that second effort on every possession.

Q. Texas Tech kind of had a bit of a wild card performance yesterday from Josiah Moseley. When you see a guy who only played 12 games in the regular season have a big performance, is that tough to game-plan against? What do you guys think about that?

LATRELL WRIGHTSELL JR.: I mean, there’s a lot of things that happen throughout the season. They had a big injury that happened to them, with one of their best bigs. Guys step up throughout the season, you don’t know when but they do, and we’re all really good basketball players. So you have to respect every person on the floor, and if they’re playing, they’re obviously really good and they’re equipped to play.

We know that, understanding and taking an understatement on anybody is the wrong thing to do. So just respecting each and every person, as we respect ourselves and coming in and giving them the ultimate respect, and playing hard against each person and not taking one person lightly.

Q. Latrell, I keep hearing you talk about gratitude, and I’ve heard it a lot throughout the postseason, going back to Nashville. You and Houston being two of the kind of senior leaders on this team, what are the conversations like between you guys where both you guys’ college career could end any day but you also have a leadership role to fill? Is it a special dynamic between you two?

LATRELL WRIGHTSELL JR.: Yeah, it really is. Houston is really good at organizing a lot of stuff. He’s a really good organizer, and he kind of organized a team Bible study, and we really got close from that.

We have a team chaplain, Scottie, who does chaplain before every home game, and our big emphasis was Galatians 6:9, and that’s just don’t grow weary in doing good because at the proper time you’ll reap the harvest if you don’t give up.

Like you said, we’ve faced a lot of adversity, so just to be grateful for this opportunity is a blessing in itself, and for us to be able to be on this stage is a blessing that we can give all of our glory to the Lord. I’m just happy to be here.

So I think we all use that as a fill of motivation to just be grateful for the opportunity because you never know when it’s taken away, and when we go out there with that, we seize the moment and we capture the moment and where we are, and we have a good time playing, and we all love to be here and playing for each other.

Q. Latrell or Aiden, how much bigger of a role do you feel like faith has played in this team specifically compared to last year?

AIDEN SHERRELL: I wouldn’t say it’s like a difference, but it’s a different team for sure that we’re with this year, and we’ve got a lot of guys who are from different schools and different programs, and we just brought them in, into our culture, brought them into our core values that we have as a team, and faith plays a big part for all of us.

We can all collaborate with that, and that’s pretty much it.

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