Alabama basketball's rare ugly win might end up being a blessing
For the first time in over a month, the final minute of an Alabama basketball game meant something. After breezing through the first seven games of its SEC schedule, the No. 2 Crimson Tide almost stumbled against an unranked Mississippi State team inside Coleman Coliseum.
And that might end up being a good thing.
Alabama avoided embarrassment Wednesday night, grinding out a gritty 66-63 victory over Mississippi State. More importantly, it received a preview of tougher tests ahead in the coming weeks.
“We found a way to get a win in a tight game,” Alabama head coach Nate Oats said. “We haven’t had many tight games. It’s not the worst. We had to figure out how to win a close game, especially when you’re down.”
Wednesday’s win marked the first time this season that Alabama failed to be an SEC opponent by double digits. The last time home fans were sweating out the final minute of a game inside Coleman Coliseum came during a 91-88 victory over Memphis on Dec. 13. Even then, the Tigers never offered up as big of a scare as Mississippi State did Wednesday night.
At one point, the Bulldogs appeared en route to a double-digit victory of their own. Alabama dug itself into an early first-half hole, going down by as many as 11 points before trimming the deficit to 36-29 at the break.
The Crimson Tide allowed the Bulldogs to shoot 56.7% from the floor while scoring 26 points in the paint before the break. Meanwhile, Alabama sleepwalked through most of the first period and stumbled to a 33.3% start from the floor, including a dismal 3 of 16 (18.8%) from beyond the arc.
“One, they’ve got to be ready to go out the gate,” Oats said, critiquing his team. “We chart blue-collar points, they had us doubled-up in the first two four-minute wars. I didn’t think we played hard enough. Mississippi State was playing harder than us to start the game. So when you’re not playing hard enough, you’re not getting stops on offense, you start to struggle a little bit. I think when your defense is great, you kind of lose yourself in the game, your offense is easier, you get some easier buckets in transition.”
While Alabama’s halftime talk got a little heated at times, Oats said he didn’t feel the need to tear into any of his players during intermission. Instead, the team got the whiteboard and started running through its litany of first-half mistakes.
“We went in and started checking off everything that was wrong,” Oats said. “There was so much wrong that we just had a whole list. We were definitely a little animated with some of the screwups, why they did it, but it wasn’t necessarily a butt-chewing.
“I think this team’s a pretty mature group. They knew they weren’t playing as hard and as well as they needed to.”
Sure enough, Alabama came out a different side in the second half, holding Mississippi State to 34.6% shooting from the floor while chipping away at the lead. Trailing by three midway through the half, the Tide used a 15-4 run to go up 63-55 with 3:30 remaining. Alabama didn’t make a field goal for the rest of the game but was able to lean on its defense to claw out the win.
Leading by three with two seconds remaining, Alabama forward Noah Gurley blocked a potential game-tying shot from Shakeel Moore, allowing the Coleman crowd to take a much-needed sigh of relief.
Wednesday’s win might not have been comfortable, but it may end up coming in handy moving forward. Alabama’s next three games — at Oklahoma, home against Vanderbilt and at LSU — shouldn’t cause too many problems. However, back-to-back games at No. 15 Auburn and No. 4 Tennessee next month could create some tense moments.
Alabama has been working on end-of-game situations in recent weeks, but Oats admitted that situations like Wednesday night’s scare are hard to emulate in practice. And while it wasn’t always pretty, the Tide can rest a little easier knowing it was able to pass a rare test.
“We'll learn from it, hopefully get better,” Oats said. 'It won’t be the last close game we have for sure.”