TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Alabama basketball had a plethora of players showcase what the 2026-27 Crimson Tide is about during Thursday night's 111-93 preseason home victory over Furman.
Alabama signed six players to its freshman class and three of them faced the Paladins. The first-year trio of Tarris Bouie, Cole Cloer and Qayden Samuels each played for over half of the game and they all made a major impact during their unofficial collegiate debuts.
"Tarris ended up winning the Hard Hat for us tonight with his activity, led us in rebounds with eight," Alabama head coach Nate Oats said during the postgame press conference. "He scored it, shoot, almost our leading scorer with 18."
Every game and practice, Tide players are given a certain amount of non-scoreboard points for deflections, steals, blocks, rebounds and loose balls. Offensive rebounds, diving on the floor and drawing fouls are also methods of gaining blue-collar points. Whichever player tallies the most at the end of the day/night is rewarded with a construction worker hard hat. Pretty impressive that Bouie, who also swiped an absurd six steals, took it home in his first game against collegiate competition.
Oats said he was "pretty happy" with the offensive output from the freshmen, as they had "a lot of good moments" in heavy minutes. Cloer, who transferred from NC State after redshirting as an early enrollee, couldn't have started his Crimson Tide career much better. Cloer scored nine points within his first 12 minutes of action and finished the night with 14 points on 4 of 10 from downtown.
"I thought Cole came out, made some shots early for us, which is huge, kind of got us going. We were struggling a bit there early offensively, thought that was big," Oats said. "You look at the defensive efficiency when he was on the floor versus when he was off the floor, he had the best defensive leverage by anybody on the team too. So good game for Cole."
Oats had a difficult decision to make entering the game. Alabama was without four players for this one, all of whom are guards. Aden Holloway is serving a suspension, Jaxon Richardson had an illness, Preston Murphy Jr. has an upper body injury and Anderson Diaz will be out for about a month with an elbow injury.
Samuels, who is listed as a 6-foot-6, 225-pound (heaviest backcourt player on the roster) guard, earned the starting nod. He often ran the point, and in 27 minutes, he tallied 17 points on 7 of 11 from the field, plus seven rebounds – only trailing Bouie for the team high.
"Amari (Allen) is the only point guard, if you will, so Qayden had to play point those 14 minutes when Amari was out of the game, and I thought he did really well," Oats said. "I thought he handled the ball well. He played…a little bit out of position at the point.
"He's kind of been a natural scorer, been a high-level scorer his whole life. Thought he did a pretty good job running the point. He only had two turnovers in 26 minutes, so I thought Qayden played really well. He scored well, rebounded it well."
To close this story, BamaCentral asked former Alabama guard Labaron Philon Jr. the day before the 2026 NBA Draft to name three newcomers we should keep an eye on this season. His response couldn't have reflected Thursday night any better.
"I would say Cole [Cloer], definitely," Philon said first. "When I was there, he went on a visit and it was crazy how he shoots the ball. I feel like Cole is going to be [really good]. Qayden Samuels and Tarris [Bouie], too. I feel like they've got a really good team.
"They've got a lot of young guys that could really go. I feel like those guys want to play winning basketball, so they chose the right program. Especially Qayden Samuels, his size and play style is perfect for coach Oats."
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This article was originally published on www.si.com/college/alabama as Three Alabama Freshmen Produce 'A Lot of Good Moments' in Preseason Win Over Furman.