CHICAGO — Illinois center Zvonimir Ivisic has the kind of go-go gadget arms that look … different. The 7-foot-2 big man is well on his way to posting better shot-blocking numbers than any Illinois player has in the internet era. Alabama’s Labaron Philon made it obvious to all 18,000 in The House that Jordan Built that he isn’t scared of giants.
The sophomore guard and top-20 NBA prospect erupted for 24 points, including four straight ice-cold buckets in a do-or-die stretch in the final three minutes, to help No. 11 Alabama outlast No. 8 Illinois, 90-86. Try as he might, Ivisic’s skyscraper reach couldn’t scrape Philon’s feathery 3-pointer that gave Alabama a six-point lead with 77 ticks left.
“I knew I was gonna shoot the last one,” Philon said in the bowels of the United Center with an all-knowing grin. “Just coming off that screen, I feel like (Ivisic) gave me a lot of space and Coach Oats trusts me to go out there and make plays. So I didn’t really second-guess it. Just let it go.
Let it go, he did. To the bottom of the net, it sank. It proved to be the killshot to an Illinois team that a notoriously straight-shooter like Oats prognosticated would be in the mix to compete for the national championship.
The jury is still out on just how good this Alabama club will be, but the run-and-gun barrage was a burr in the saddle of Illinois — just like it was with St. John’s — and Philon has put the college basketball world on notice that he is a flat-out dude.
While other SEC Player of the Year hopefuls have stumbled in the early going, Philon is flourishing in a situation constructed with him in mind. Philon is stamping himself as a legitimate First Team, All-American candidate.
“He’s super talented,” Oats said. “I told him our team’s gonna go as he goes a lot.”
Inside Philon’s last-second return
Just six months ago, Philon believed his days in an Alabama uniform were over. He told reporters at the NBA Draft Combine that he had closed the book on a return to college basketball and that he had informed Oats and the Alabama staff of his inclination.
On the eve of the NBA Draft stay-or-go deadline, the status quo remained. Alabama was in the thick of trying to recruit USC transfer Desmond Claude or other top portal prospects to fill its lead guard role, but when Oats got a ring from Philon on Deadline Day, his attention perked up.
“We knew he was late first (round), early second,” Oats recalled. “He had a guarantee in the early second. He called me late in the afternoon and said, ‘Coach, what if I told you I always wanted to come back?’ I said, ‘Shoot, Roll Tide. Let’s go win one.’ He’s a great kid. He’s an Alabama kid who wants to take Alabama to places it’s never gone before. We were able to make the Final Four the year before he got here. We got beat in the Elite Eight last year. He came back to compete for a national championship, and I think we got a team that can do it.”
Philon kept his decision so under wraps that even some Alabama staffers were caught by surprise when the news trickled out less than 90 minutes before the 11:59 p.m. deadline. Those well-made portal plans? Yeah, they got tossed in a hurry. Alabama didn’t need to find a star anymore. It had one charting back to Tuscaloosa.
“When I first made the decision, I called all the coaches and told them, you know, I wanted to come play for a championship team with a higher standard and come be a leader,” Philon said. “Come back and do things that, you know, I didn’t have the chance to do last year. Take more sacrifices. I’ve just been learning as I go.”
Philon got a front-row seat to Mark Sears being the one Oats so routinely leaned on to take game-altering shots in enormous moments. Sometimes, the ball went in, like when Sears splashed a floater to beat hated Auburn on the road. Make or miss, Philon observed the cross a star has to carry.
After 25 points in Madison Square Garden against St. John’s and 24 more at the United Center, consider those lessons learned. Philon’s days of playing in NBA arenas are so clearly right around the corner as he builds his stock from fringe Day 1 candidate to potential lottery prospect, but he may have a few more giants to slay first.
“He’s a pro,” Illinois coach Brad Underwood said succinctly. “Sometimes good players just have the ability to take over a game like that, and he did that tonight.”
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