The penultimate week of the Southeastern Conference regular season will get underway for No. 25 Alabama and Vanderbilt on Tuesday when they square off in Nashville.
The Crimson Tide (17-10, 7-7 SEC) are in a four-way tie for fifth place in the conference with LSU, Florida and South Carolina after squandering a 13-point lead in a 90-81 loss at Kentucky on Saturday. Keon Ellis scored 28 points and Jaden Shackelford added 18 in the setback.
Alabama was let down by its defense, as Kentucky shot 53.2 percent from the field and 64.3 percent from 3-point range.
“We kept telling them through the hot start that our defense wasn’t going to be good enough to win the game,” Crimson Tide head coach Nate Oats said. “And that’s what ended up happening — 1.48 (points per possession) at the end of the game is what we gave up defensively. Our offense was 100 percent good enough to win this game, but we couldn’t get stops when we needed to.”
The defensive challenge will not get any easier for Alabama…