Alabama men’s basketball snatched defeat from the jaws of victory against Tennessee.

The Crimson Tide was on track to win. To finally beat the Vols for the first time since 2021. Then everything fell apart in the final 36 seconds.

By the end of it, No. 5 Tennessee hit a buzzer-beater to beat No. 6 Alabama 79-76 on Saturday at Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Murphy’s law struck the Crimson Tide again and again over the final seconds of the game. What could go wrong did.

Alabama guard Labaron Philon hit a layup with 1:15 left to put Alabama up 75-72. Shortly after, he made a free-throw to extend the lead to four. Thirty-six seconds remained.

Then the unraveling began. Here’s a list of the errors.

1. Grant Nelson fouled Chaz Lanier on the layup. That put Lanier at the line with the chance at a three-point play. “Tough call on Grant’s verticality late there at the end,” Alabama coach Nate Oats said. “This is the game of basketball. There’s a lot of tough calls in the game.”
2. Oats subbed out the rebounders for the guards before the free-throw attempt. Out went Mo Dioubate/Cliff Omoruyi and in went Mark Sears/Chris Youngblood. “Subbed our bigs out to get the rebound before I should have,” Oats said. “Should have subbed them out after we secured the rebound.”
3. Jarin Stevenson committed a foul during the free-throw miss. That put Jahmai Mashack at the free-throw line, and he made both attempts.
4. Oats doesn’t call timeout during inbound play. Alabama had a chance to inbound the ball with about two seconds left on the shot clock on its offensive end. Then Tennessee blanketed the Crimson Tide. There was nowhere to go. “I should have called timeout,” Oats said. “Coaches can call timeout on the underneath out of bounds play. At four (seconds), I should have called it.”
5. Philon commits five-second violation. He didn’t get the ball in on time and committed a turnover. That gave Tennessee the ball back with three seconds left on the game clock. “I thought we were getting it in,“ Oats said. ”That’s on me.”
6. Oats subs out the guards for the bigs. Out went Sears/Youngblood and in went Dioubate/Omoruyi. “We probably could have had better guys in,“ Oats said. ”Get a little bit smaller at the end with 3.8 on the clock to make sure they didn’t get the ball up the floor.”
7. Mashack gets too open of a look. He had a good bit of space to make the game-winning 3-pointer, and he did.

All of it combined ended in Alabama squandering what could have been a tough-gritty win.

“I was not good for the last 30 seconds today,” Oats said. “I feel like I failed these guys. For 39.5 minutes, (we) outplayed them.”

But the last ½ a minute, Tennessee won. And that made all the difference.

Nick Kelly is an Alabama beat writer for AL.com and the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on X and Instagram.