John Petty Jr.'s career night leads Alabama basketball past Samford

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Alabama guard John Petty Jr. tied his own school record of 10 made three-pointers and finished with 39 points and 10 rebounds to help lead the Crimson Tide men’s basketball team to a dominating 105-87 road win over Samford in the inaugural Chick-fil-A Birmingham Classic played inside Legacy Arena.

“This was a good win. Samford is a quality team. Shooting got us off to a good start. Give credit to them, they fought back from being down 25 at one point. I thought they really fought back and made it an interesting game. We didn’t handle their pressure very well. I thought our defense kind of slacked off. That’s a little bit of human nature when the offense came as easy as it did in the first half.

"Guys have a tendency to not play as hard as they need to and not be as focused on defense. We addressed that at the half, but I didn’t think we did a very good job coming out in the second half. Once we kind of settled in there with the press and got our defense set and got some stops, we were able to open it back up.

"Incredible performance from Petty. We had some guys play through injuries; Herb worked through some injuries he’s fighting. Reese, the same way. Reese has been shooting it well too, he was 4-of-8. We’ve got some tough kids that are bought in to win, we’ve just got to do a little better job staying focused on the defensive end for the full forty minutes from here on out.”

Thanks in large part to Petty’s performance, Alabama (5-5) set a school record as the 105 points are the most points ever scored in a true road game in program history, surpassing mark of 101 points set on Dec. 4, 2004 in a triple-overtime loss at Charlotte. Even though Wednesday night’s contest was played in Legacy Arena, it was a considered a true road game for the Crimson Tide.

Petty finished the night connecting on 12-of-18 shots from the field and 10-of-13 from beyond the arc – the same exact total of threes made and attempted when he originally set the program record back on Nov. 17, 2017 vs. Alabama A&M.

In addition to Petty’s output, junior Alex Reese finished with 16 points to mark his third consecutive double-digit game, while freshman Jaden Shackelford scored 16 points and sophomore Kira Lewis 11 points, five rebounds, five assists and three steals in the win.

Samford (6-7) was led by Josh Sharkey’s 18 points and 15 assists to lead four Bulldogs in double figures.

This report was obtained from a recent Alabama Athletics release.

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