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Bama News
Injury situation for banged-up Bama entering big test
Alabama has two rotation players banged up.
A season of injuries continues for Alabama’s basketball team entering a Friday night visit from Stephen F. Austin.
Two key players were limited this week in practice with lingering injuries on a roster with already limited depth. The Crimson Tide faces the team that stunned Duke last week in a 7 p.m. CT Friday game in Coleman Coliseum.
Stephen F. Austin is 7-1 after an overtime win in Durham while the Tide is 3-4.
Coach Nate Oats said forward Alex Reese has been held out of practice all week after hurting his foot in the second of three games last week in the Bahamas. He’s been in a boot and only did limited skill work Thursday.
“He’s a pretty tough kid,” Oats said, “and my guess is he’d give it a go and we’ll see how healthy he is during the game.”
Guard Beetle Bolden is also still dealing with two separate left hand/wrist injuries that includes a bone bruise.
“It’s still bothering him,” Oats said. “We tried resting him all week to try and get it to heel. He took a shot, kind of a numbing agent to help him in the three games down in the Bahamas. Obviously, it worked well because we needed him to make shots like he did against Southern Miss.”
Bolden had a season-high 23 points making 6 of 8 from 3-point range in an 83-68 win over Southern Miss. Oats said the West Virginia graduate transfer was “basically a game-to-game decision.”
Bolden is scoring 8.8 points a game while making 39.5 percent of his 3-point shots. He’s started two of the six games he’s played.
Reese was a starter in four of seven games, scoring 6.4 points a game while looking for his 3-point stroke. The junior is shooting 25 percent making 7 of 28 from the perimeter.
Alabama is already playing without star recruit Juwan Gary and JUCO transfer James Rojas, both lost to season-ending injuries before playing a single game.
Herbert Jones also missed a game with an elbow injury suffered in the season-opening loss to Penn.
“If we had a healthy Reese, a healthy Beetle, a healthy Herb … I mean, Herb’s elbow injury in a lot of other sports, he’s probably still not even playing,” Oats said. “Or if he wasn’t as tough as he is, so if we can get healthy and still win some games here in December and get on a roll going into SEC play, we’ll be alright. Right now, we’re pretty banged up still.”
