How Alabama’s unheralded bench cog helped the Crimson Tide into the Sweet 16
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Mouhamed Dioubate is a key factor off the bench in Alabama’s quest to an NCAA championship.
That’s how his teammates Aden Holloway, Grant Nelson and Chris Youngblood described him after No. 2 Alabama defeated 7th-seeded Saint Mary’s, 80-66, in the second round of the NCAA tournament on Sunday night at Rocket Arena.
“Mo has been a key to our winning success all season,” Holloway said. “You win championships with players like Mo because he’s hitting threes tonight, and he might get six offensive rebounds in seven minutes. We depend on Mo a lot for other than just scoring. You’ve got rebounding, steals, all the blue-collar plays. So Mo has been a key to our success all season.”
Dioubate hit two 3-point shots against Saint Mary’s and finished with 10 points and 5 rebounds in 15 minutes. Friday against Robert Morris, he scored 18 points to go with 10 rebounds.
“I’ve never seen him hit an off the dribble step-back three, so that was pretty cool,” Nelson said. “He’s been playing hard. He always does, so it’s good to see shots fall for him.
This season, Dioubate is shooting 62.3% from the field with 6.1 rebounds and 1.1 assists per game.
“He’s brought straight toughness and just hard playing. Even hit some threes, too, which have been big for us,” Holloway said. “Just shout out to Mo. That’s my boy. He’s been playing really good these last two games.”
Dioubate played a key role in Alabama’s rebounding. The Tide outrebounded Saint Mary’s, 41-36, and Dioubate said that’s what made a difference for them.
“We won the glass battle today. We outrebounded them.” Dioubate said. “I think that’s what really helped us as well as playing the transition. It was the rebounds. Coach emphasized it coming into this game. He said if we want to win this game, we have to win a rebounding battle. And we did that and we won the blue collar. We did all the tough stuff that we said we were going to do.”
The Tide will be heading to Newark to match up against BYU on Thursday in the Sweet 16 at the Prudential Center.
Dioubate, a native of Queens, New York, says he’s looking forward to playing at home in the Tri-State area.
“Yeah, that was one of my biggest motivations going into the game.” Dioubate said. “I want to go home, I want to play in front of my family. I want to see my friends, my dad, he hasn’t seen me play all year. So it’s going to be his first time seeing me play, so that’s kind of a motivation. Some of the guys knew that as well, so we play for each other. I just can’t wait to go back and play at home.”
BYU beat Wisconsin, 91-89, on Saturday, so Alabama understands what’s ahead
“We’re going to play two really tough teams coming up.” Alabama head coach Nate Oats said. “We’ve got to be ready for them.”
Part of Alabama being ready will include another outstanding performance from Dioubate.