BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — It didn't even take five minutes before Alabama and Auburn got into a scuffle during the exhibition at Legacy Arena.
The Iron Bowl of Basketball was known as "The Feud" for this preseason event, and it lived up to that name immediately. With 15:29 remaining in the first half, the ball was tied up off a rebound between Alabama's Keitenn Bristow and Auburn's Thomas Dowd, as they twisted down onto the floor and fought for possession as if there were a fumble on the gridiron.
As the remaining players on both teams congregated towards Bristow and Dowd, it turned into a skirmish. Alabama's Amari Allen and Auburn's Kevin Overton got into some hand fighting, while Tigers' George Kimble also had some words. Crimson Tide forward Brandon Garrison was in there as well.
Alabama head coach Nate Oats also got into the scuffle and was screaming at Overton. Auburn head coach Steve Pearl joined in, but was smiling at the chaos. Allen, Garrison, Overton and Kimble each received a technical.
Pearl said during the postgame press conference that it "felt like a Sweet 16 game in October" and that it was a "joke" that this wasn't on national television.
"Just keep fighting," Pearl said when asked what he told his players following the first-half scuffle. "Keep your head [up]. Understand that the referees are going to be looking for anything at this point, and you can't give them an excuse to call any silly fouls."
But the skirmishes didn't end there. After the final buzzer sounded, as Alabama outlasted Auburn 87-85, both teams came to half court and Kimble went at Allen.
"I don't really know what happened," Allen said. "I was just in the moment, having won the game, and I just felt something. I'm not sure what happened at all—"
Oats then spoke Allen was finishing his sentence.
"I was standing right there, I don't know if he got punched," Oats said. "They pushed him. Unfortunate that happened to close the game, but he thought he got pushed. I definitely wouldn't call a punch.
"So I mean, maybe you guys did the video, I was standing right there, I thought he just kind of came in and two-hand shoved him. Steven (Pearl) just decided to [separate] the guys and send them to the lockers the other way."
Calling this simply an exhibition would be an insult. What kind of preseason game has four techs assessed and multiple scuffles?
Pearl said it best in that this felt like a March Madness battle. Half the crowd wore crimson and white, while the other portion donned burnt orange and navy blue.
It's tough to script a better preseason matchup than the Iron Bowl of Basketball.
"It's Alabama-Auburn — nobody wants to lose," Oats said. "Got real chippy. Those guys played hard. I think part of the reason for us playing this, I wanted an intense exhibition game. Like, this is not easily replicable. You don't get this in practice. You know, you don't get this in buy games. This is a rivalry game. This is an SEC game. So to be able to play an SEC game in the middle of October, kind of lets you know what you've got to work on.
"I thought it was a complete success. Obviously, I would have liked for some of the chippiness that went over the line did not happen. That's not what we want to be about. So we've got to clean that up as a program. But the intensity from both teams, the competitiveness from both teams, I thought was great."
This was the last of Alabama's three preseason contests, as UA also took down Furman on Oct. 8 and Ole Miss on Oct. 15. Nevertheless, the Crimson Tide is 0-0, and it'll host Sam Houston in the regular-season opener on Nov. 3.
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