A hush settled over Food City Center.
Nate Ament lay on the hardwood, wincing in pain after diving for a loose basketball. Trainers attended to Tennessee basketball’s star freshman, inspecting his right leg after it bent awkwardly under his body as the 6-foot-10 NBA prospect fell to the floor.
The Vols held a four-point lead over Alabama at the time their second-highest scorer departed for the locker room, an advantage that would evaporate in the final seconds of action as the Crimson Tide stormed back to take down a shorthanded Tennessee. The Vols not only lost the game in painful fashion, but lost one of their essential cogs in the process.
For now, Tennessee’s machine will have to learn how to make due with spare parts.
“It goes back to execution,” head coach Rick Barnes said. “And it’s not just offense, it’s defensive execution. Think about how many points they scored at the rim in that second half, we need some of those. We might do it a little bit different, but they still got in there and made some shots.”
Ament attempted to give it a go, coming back out to start the second half after being evaluated in the locker room. He connected on his first and only basket of the night, removing himself from the game for good soon afterwards. The Manassas, Virginia, product couldn’t grit through the pain.
“I think he hurt his knee a little bit,” Barnes said. “He did tweak the foot he had turned at Missouri, that ankle. He tried, and if he can’t go, he can’t go because there’s no one tougher than him.”
Alabama outscored the Vols 35-25 throughout the rest of the game as Tennessee’s scoring touch faded. Amari Evans did his best to fill the void, contributing seven points and eight rebounds. He made an impact on the defensive end with a pair of blocks. With Ament’s status for the final two games of the regular season unknown, the Pittsburgh product’s role could see a shift towards the limelight.
The guard’s career-high 28 minutes signaled just that.
“Nate went down, so I feel like I got to rise to the occasion,” Evans said. “Do what my coaches need me to do.”
Ja’Kobi Gillespie went about his usual scoring ways without his teammate, racking up 26 points on an all-around night. The guard tied his Vols’ single-game record eight steals while tallying seven helpers and five boards. He kept his guys afloat, but without his best offensive partner, the scoring droughts that have hampered Tennessee this season became too much to bear.
The Vols connected on only one field goal in the final 3:12 of the game, the perfect opening for a rolling Crimson Tide team to steal a win on the road. Gillespie felt the lack of Ament’s presence, especially in the small margins of the game.
“Nate does a lot on the floor that you may not notice,” Gillespie said. “And he can score the ball, so I feel like we just missed him all around.”
