Alabama point guard Labaron Philon is comfortable with the clock ticking down.
But nearly six months before his nine-point, four-possession explosion that closed out Illinois in a pseudo-road game in Chicago came Philon’s biggest last-minute heroics for Alabama fans.
As far as the outside world was concerned, the Mobile native was all but gone for the NBA draft. At the NBA draft combine earlier that month, Philon had said the door was closed on a return and that the Alabama coaching staff had already been informed of his plans to depart. But even as he barreled full steam ahead towards the draft (even receiving a second-round promise, per coach Nate Oats), Philon’s heart wasn’t quite set on the move.
“He called me late in the afternoon [on the draft withdrawal deadline] and said, ‘Coach, what if I told you I always wanted to come back?’” Oats recalls. “I said ‘Roll Tide. Let’s go win one.”
Twenty-nine minutes before midnight ET that day, the news he’d be back hit the internet courtesy of Alabama’s NIL collective. And in one phone call, some rapid-fire negotiating and one tweet, the Tide had their star point guard and future closer back.
As a freshman, Philon played off of Mark Sears, who had led the Tide to the Final Four in 2024 and was one of the best point guards in the country. Philon was good, even great … but Alabama went as its senior star did. The opportunity to come back to school for Philon was as much as anything a chance to see what he’s made of when it’s his team. And Wednesday night’s dominant finish demonstrated that there aren’t many point guards in college basketball more up to the task.
“Our team’s going to go as he goes a lot,” Oats said.
His final line in outdueling the eighth-ranked Illini: 24 points, five assists, 9-for-18 shooting. Nineteen of those points came in the second half, and nine of those 19 came on four consecutive possessions in the final 2:30 that kept a hard-charging Illinois at bay. First, he jetted past Zvonimir Ivišić and Andrej Stojaković on a failed defensive trip for a layup. Then, he got downhill going to his right hand for a second straight trip and left a runner short, but got his own rebound and scored.
On possession No. 3, with the crowd begging for a stop, Ivišić properly switched onto him, preventing that aggressive righty drive that had burned Illinois the previous two possessions. Philon countered by firing away from three, getting the shot over the outstretched arms of the 7-footer before watching it rainbow through the net.
“I knew I was gonna shoot that one,” Philon says with a grin. “I feel like he gave me a lot of space. And Coach Oats trusts me to go out there and make plays. I didn’t really second guess it. I just let it go.”
And with Illinois’ desperation for a stop even higher with under a minute to play, Philon blew past Kylan Boswell, Eurostepped in front of Keaton Wagler and floated it in for the dagger. Four possessions. Nine points. One monster early-season win for the Crimson Tide.
“When I first made the decision [to come back], I called all the coaches and told them I wanted to come play for a championship team with a higher standard and come be a leader,” Philon says. “[I wanted to] come back and do things that, you know, I didn’t have the chance to do last year.”
Stated or not, chief among those was being in moments like Wednesday night. Ball in his hands, almost no chance of giving it up (especially with the matchups Alabama was creating). Oats told Philon to go win them the game, and his star point guard did just that.
This was the third game of a preposterously difficult four-game stretch for Alabama, one that started at Madison Square Garden against UConn and concludes Monday in Las Vegas against KenPom’s No. 1 Gonzaga with a pair of Big Ten contenders in Purdue and Illinois sandwiched in between. Had Philon not made his 11th-hour pivot, Oats might have looked like a madman for putting that level of challenge in front of his team. Instead, he looks like a genius. Outside of Arizona, no team in college basketball has a better November résumé than the Tide, with two potential top-10 wins away from home. Four starters departed from last year’s Alabama team, but the one that returned has balled out, with 25 points against St. John’s in that victory before his 24 on Wednesday night. Alabama was the shorter, less talented and cheaper roster overall in both of those wins. The difference? The Tide had Labaron Philon, and their opponent didn’t.
“He’s an Alabama kid that wants to take Alabama further than it has ever gone before,” Oats said. “He came back to compete for a national championship, and I think we’ve got the team that can do it.”
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Saying No to the NBA Is Paying Off for Labaron Philon, and Alabama.
