![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Alabama-vs-Hofstra-NCAA-Tournament.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
(AP Photo Credit\/Chris O\u2019Meara)<\/p>\n
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Labaron Philon Jr. scored 29 points and No. 4 seed Alabama rallied from an early double-digit deficit to beat 13th-seeded Hofstra 90-70 in a first-round game in the Midwest Region of the NCAA Tournament on Friday.<\/p>\n
The Crimson Tide (24-9) advanced to a second-round matchup against fifth-seeded Texas Tech (23-10), a 20-point winner over 12th-seeded Akron in the earlier first-round game at Benchmark International Arena.<\/p>\n
Alabama ended the opening half on a 19-7 run to wipe out a 10-point deficit, then built its own lead to 13 before Hofstra (24-11) mounted one last push for a possible upset.<\/p>\n
Freshman Preston Edmead had 24 points for the Pride, and his basket pulled the Pride within 67-62 with just over seven minutes remaining. Victory Onuetu\u2019s dunk trimmed Alabama\u2019s lead to 69-64 and ignited much of a crowd of 17,769 that threw its support behind the underdogs.<\/p>\n
Philon was simply too much down the stretch, though, delivering a layup and a long 3-pointer during a surge that enabled Alabama to rebuild the lead to double digits. Taylor Bol Bowen put an exclamation point on the Crimson Tide response with two dunks and a 3-pointer as the lead ballooned to 20.<\/p>\n
Alabama played without star guard Aden Holloway, who was suspended indefinitely following an arrest on a felony drug charge. In the absence of the team\u2019s second-leading scorer, Aiden Sherrell, Latrell Wright sell Jr and Amari Allen stepping up in support of Philon, who had 21 points after halftime.<\/p>\n
Hofstra was in the tournament for the first time since 2001, the year after NBA champion and current coach Speedy Claxton helped the school located in Hempstead, New York land a spot in March Madness. The Pride also earned a berth in 2020, but that year\u2019s NCAA Tournament was canceled because of the pandemic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(AP Photo Credit\/Chris O\u2019Meara) TAMPA, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Labaron Philon Jr. scored 29 points and No. 4 seed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553779,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[3368,64,63,1533,273722,590,270932,85],"class_list":["post-553778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-alabama","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-first-round","tag-hofstra","tag-nba","tag-ncaa-tournament-2026","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}