No. 9 Alabama men’s basketball escaped Rutgers 95-90 on Wednesday night in each team’s second matchup of the inaugural Players Era Festival in Las Vegas.

This victory put Alabama in the NIL-based event’s championship game against Oregon at 8:30 p.m. CT on Saturday night. The winning team will receive $1.5 million and the losing squad still earns $1.25 million!

There’s so much to dissect from this matchup at MGM Grand Garden Arena. Here are three takeaways:

Plenty of concern arose when Preseason All-American point guard Mark Sears scored zero points in Alabama’s 100-87 win over Illinois on Nov. 20, but he’s responded with 24 points in back-to-back games against Houston on Tuesday evening and now the Scarlet Knights on Wednesday night.

Sears had a tame first half against Rutgers as he scored just six points on 2-of-6 from the field plus a pair of made free throws. But something clicked in the halftime locker room as he was up to 19 points less than midway through the second period.

Sears finished with 24 points on 7-of-19 from the field, including 3-of-9 from downtown and also a 7-of-10 clip from the charity stripe despite having four fouls with a decent amount of time left in regulation. The Rutgers defense had a very difficult time stopping him and the scoring surge lit a fire in the rest as the Crimson Tide held the lead for much of the second half.

It’s safe to say that Sears has returned to his normal form as his impact was made clear on and off the court on Wednesday night.

“We had Sears with four fouls and Sears is a big deal to our team,” Alabama head coach Nate Oats said during the postgame press conference. “He goes out and I think they went on a 7-3 run like two and a half minutes when he went out of the game. We had to get him back in. As soon as he goes in, we go on a 7-0 run.”

There’s no doubt about it that turnovers were Alabama’s biggest negative from this game as the Crimson Tide gave the ball away 20 times––the most in a game for Alabama since the 91-71 loss to Tennessee on Jan. 20. this past season.

Alabama’s known for its fast-paced style of offense, but it may have been too quick to open up the game. For reference, Alabama had 15 total turnovers (still not a great number) against Houston meanwhile the Tide tallied 10 on Thursday night with seven minutes remaining in the first half.

Fortunately for Alabama, it wasn’t until the eighth turnover that Rutgers finally capitalized and scored off of it. However, the giveaways number didn’t exactly improve in the second half and the Scarlet Knights then took advantage by finishing the game with 23 points off turnovers.

Despite holding a 6-1 record, the Crimson Tide had turned the ball over at least 10 times in five of its seven opening games of the 2024-25 season. This is a stat category Alabama must improve on as it continues its rigorous schedule.

“Our turnovers were a major issue,” Oats said. “They scored 23 points off our 20 turnovers. That’s way too many for having a skilled, talented team that’s supposed to be a good offensive team. We didn’t take care of the ball very well tonight. So give Rutgers a lot of credit for their physicality. They got into us. They caused some turnovers. They’re a well-coached team. They’re physical. They know what they’re doing.

For the most part of the young season, the guards have been Alabama’s top scorers with a couple of anomalies in there from other positions. But aside from Sears, the forwards were putting the points on the board against Rutgers as Latrell Wrightsell Jr., the next-best guard on Wednesday night, scored just six points.

Grant Nelson had 17 points, and Mouhamed Dioubate, Jarin Stevenson and Derrion Reid each scored 10 points. These four combined for a 14-of-24 slate from the field, including Stevenson and Reid each going 2-of-3 from downtown––ending Stevenson’s 0-of-18 three-point drought since the season started,

The four of them got it done on the glass as well, as they combined for 26 of the team’s 43 rebounds, including five offensive boards by Dioubate plus one from each of the other three. Dioubate was also the Hard Hat winner for adding two blocks to his blue-collar point total. Oats said the 18-9 difference in second-chance points was “really where we won the game.”

Nevertheless, the forward play wasn’t perfect, specifically on the defensive end. Coming into this game, Rutgers had perhaps the most hyped freshmen duo in the country in guard Dylan Harper and forward Ace Bailey and they did not disappoint.

Harper scored a jaw-dropping 37 points on 11-of-19 from the field, including 25 points in the second half alone. He did this by constantly driving to the basket, and when he didn’t make the shot, he landed 15-of-16 free throw attempts. The Tide forwards had trouble defending him without fouling.

Bailey scored 22 points on 9-of-18 and struggled to be contested inside of the three-point line. He was the Scarlet Knights’ leading scorer in the first half with 13, but the aforementioned Reid slowed him down a bit in the second period.

“Ace may be the best mid-range shotmaker I’ve seen,” Oats said. “I mean, he just kind of rises up over guys, the floaters with the touch. He’s tough. We didn’t do a great job. We needed more size on him. I thought Derrion did a pretty good job on him. He’s a guy if you don’t have size on him, he’s just shooting over 6-2, 6-3, 6-4 guards. He’s gonna cause some problems. We thought that going in, and then Derrion’s gotta stay up out of foul trouble because he’s turning into an elite defender for us.

“And then Dylan, he gets to the rim pretty much whenever he wants. We didn’t have anybody that could stay in front of him in ball screens. We didn’t do a very good job. I mean, he’s got some force, some physicality, some strength coming downhill. So if you’re kind of in your drop, he comes downhill with some force and puts some pressure on you at the rim – they didn’t take very many threes.”