Keeshawn Barthelemy scored 22 points, but his biggest shot of the night was a miss that Oregon teammate Nate Bittle tip-dunked to give the Ducks an 83-81 win over No. 9 Alabama in Saturday’s championship game of the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas.
Oregon (8-0) coughed up a six-point lead in the final 30 seconds of regulation when Aden Holloway sliced the deficit in half with a 3-pointer after a pair of Barthelemy free throws pushed the Ducks lead to 81-75.
Alabama (6-2) immediately regained possession when Mark Sears swiped the ball from Brandon Angel on the ensuing inbound pass. Sears was then fouled and split his foul shots — but Mouhamed Dioubate rebounded the miss and was sent to the line himself, where he sank both attempts to tie the game.
The Ducks put the ball in Barthelemy’s hot hands on their subsequent trip down the court. He shot 4-of-5 from 3-point distance on the night and had given Oregon a critical, four-point cushion in the final minute with a hanging floater earlier.
Derrion Reid got a hand on Barthelemy’s attempt to alter its trajectory, but Bittle followed up for the game-winning dunk. It capped a 19-point, nine-rebound night for Bittle.
Oregon also got 12 points from TJ Bamba — the only Duck beside Barthelemy to make a 3-pointer — and 11 points from Supreme Cook. Jackson Shelstad scored six points, with no two bigger than the pair he was awarded on a fast-break layup that underwent a lengthy video review.
Shelstad swiped the ball from Grant Nelson’s blindside with the score tied at 75. Jarin Stevenson’s chase-down shot-block effort was called goaltending, giving Oregon the lead down the stretch.
Stevenson was one of five Crimson Tide scorers in double-figures, finishing with 11 points before fouling out. Sears and Holloway added 11 each, Latrell Whitesell Jr. scored 10 points, and Labaron Philon shot 6-of-8 from the floor for a team-high 15 points.
–Field Level Media
