Nate Oats Updates Alabama Availability Ahead of Matchup with St. John’s

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - Nate Oats and the Alabama Crimson Tide will travel to New York City for a matchup with Rick Pitino and the St. John's Red Storm on Saturday, November 8. Tip-off is scheduled for 11:00 a.m. Central Time for the highly anticipated matchup, with the Crimson Tide and the Red Storm entering the game 1-0 after Alabama's opening-season victory over North Dakota and St. John's opening victory over Quinnipiac.

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Alabama defeated North Dakota while being shorthanded, playing without Miami transfer guard Jalil Bethea, junior Aden Holloway, graduate Latrell Wrightsell, or Tarleton State transfer Keitenn Brisotw. Bethea is out for an extended period of time, but is likely expected back by SEC play, while Oats said before the victory over North Dakota that the other three were more precautionary. On Friday, ahead of the Crimson Tide's date with No. 5 St. John's, Oats offered a positive update on most of the Tide's injured players.

"Looks very doubtful that Keitenn [Bristow] will play tomorrow," Oats said. "We'll see what he's like next week, but he didn't even participate in practice today. [Latrell] Wrightsell and [Aden] Holloway both participated in practice. We didn't go hard today, but we went, and they did what we did, so provided they look good tomorrow morning after they went through practice today, hopefully they can both play. We're hopeful on those two, likely that they play, highly doubtful, it doesn't look like Keitenn will play."

The injuries have affected how Alabama can practice, with Oats saying the Tide didn't even have 10 scholarship players available over the last week of practice.

"We haven't gone real hard, just because of the injuries, like we don't even have ten scholarship players to play against each other," Oats said. "It's not just Kietenn [Bristow], [Latrell] Wrightsell, [Aden] Holloway, obviously Jalil's [Bethea] been out a while, Preson's [Murphy Jr.] been out with a concussion. So we're down numbers. We haven't gone as hard as we normally would in practice."

With Murphy's absence, that left the ball handling duties to Labaron Philon, Houston Mallette, and the Tide's trio of freshmen in Amari Allen, Davion Hannah, and London Jemison.

No. 15 Alabama and No. 5 St. John's will tip off in Madison Square Garden at 11:00 a.m. CT. The game will be televised on FS1, so YouTube TV subscribers who are caught in the middle of the YouTube TV-Disney dispute can watch the Crimson Tide. The game will be broadcast on the radio at WQRR, 101.7 The River in Tuscaloosa. 

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_.