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During a media scrum earlier this week, Alabama coach Nate Oats remarked that he warned his team that Arizona's Brayden Burries was "a kid that can go off for 30 at any point," according to the Tuscaloosa News' Emilee Smarr. 

Oh, how prescient that turned out to be. 

The five-star freshman erupted for a career-high 28 points to help No. 1 Arizona run away and hide from No. 12 Alabama in the second half of Saturday's 96-75 rout in Birmingham.

It's Arizona's fifth win over a ranked team in the first nine games, and a true "I'm here" moment for Burries, who had struggled to find his footing in early November but is on rock-solid ground a month later.

The 6-4, 205-pound guard obliterated Alabama's smaller backcourt with bouldering drives, feathery 3s and one pinpoint lob to Tobe Awaka that led to the basket nearly getting uprooted from the stanchion. He packs a scoring punch into a roster that has spades of physicality and brute-force strength. 

Who knows where this win will end up ranking in the grand scheme of things, but Arizona's detonation of the Tide showcased just how devastating the top-ranked Wildcats can be when the shot-making accompanies the typical avalanche of paint buckets.

The numbers tell the whole story.

Arizona (9-0) nuked Alabama (7-3) inside the arc with a 44-20 advantage in paint points. It out-rebounded the Tide 52-32, including 21 offensive rebounds in the first 29 minutes of regulation. Arizona's five-man platoon of Motiejus Krivas and Tobe Awaka combined for 16 offensive rebounds alone. Alabama got eight rebounds total from its three centers.

Arizona took 84 shots compared to just 56 for Alabama. Turns out, it's a whole lot easier to win basketball games when you take 32 more shots.

Oh, and for all the tizzy about Alabama potentially being able to tilt the scales with a barrage of 3-pointers, it was Arizona that had more triples on its resume until garbage time when the game was far out of reach.

Burries (5 of 10 from 3-point range) provided that extra splash of hot sauce that fueled the Wildcats' 28-6 second-half run to show that it's in a completely different zip code as a national title contender than Alabama right now. It did it all while enduring an off night from Koa Peat, who managed just six points, a full 10 below his season average.

Arizona is now the third team to just overwhelm Alabama on the glass, joining Purdue and Gonzaga. If Oats' crew has an early exit in March, the rebounding follies could be that Achilles heel. 

Meanwhile, it's full steam ahead for undefeated Arizona, which should stick at No. 1 in the polls come Monday and heads back to Tucson with its fourth Quad 1 victory and a real belief that Burries has broken through for good.

With the freshman wall in the rearview mirror, the possibilities are endless for Burries and this club.