Alabama started this game with heat and just kept the fire going all the time. John Petty, always the long-range sniper, launched four straight 3-point shots without touching the edge in the first 3 minutes of the game. Two of them were pure NBA material, doing the kick well beyond the hoop with a guy right in his face. Petty was feeling it and was going to keep shooting.
Not to be outdone by the much older senior, freshman Josh Primo hit three behind Petty, meaning Alabama hit 6 in a row in his first 7 possessions and Tide was 19 points ahead just minutes after the game. To his credit, LSU gave a series of really tough shots throughout the semester, despite Tide’s defense forcing a flurry of early turns, keeping the scoring gap around 20-25 points the rest of the time.
After Petty and Primo’s interminable hailstorm of three, Jahvon Quinnerly took action and scored three in quick succession, giving Tide 40 points in just 10 minutes. For those who like fees, Alabama was on its way to scoring 160 points.
They calmed down a little bit in the last 10 minutes of time, only scoring 20 more points. Remember Anthony Grant’s days when it was a good offensive day if the tide hit 30 in the first half? What time was that.
Petty and Primo added three more triples, with the game getting much hotter in the final minutes of the break. Steals, missed balls and fouls abound while the two teams exchanged all the balls.
The Tigers hit nearly half a block to get 32 points, reducing Alabama’s lead to just under double.
Instead of letting the intermission cool down, Alabama went into the second half with the same precision. Petty, Primo and even Herb Jones entered a few starting trios in the first four minutes. Primo also added some highlights to the painting. Quinnerly ended things with another three-in-a-row, jumping Tide to a 43 point lead, and Tide started working on bank players for the last 10 minutes while Tide crossed to 105 points and LSU won 75 points. meaningless.
Petty, Primo and Quinnerly shared the spotlight equally for Tide tonight, scoring 24, 22 and 22 points. The combined three reach 20/25 of the three-point range, and you’ll never miss a game with that kind of accurate shot.
Josh Primo, in particular, had his best performance in his freshman season so far, hitting three points by adding a series of good moves in the painting and moving the ball. Meanwhile, Petty was a major defense presence, adding three steals with the team’s best score.
Herb Jones was as usual, adding 13 points, 5 assists and a steal. He was tasked with going from man to man with the LSU star Trendon Watford throughout the game, and did an admiral job. Watford finished with just 11 points when shooting on 4/11 and had a few turns.
Jaden Shackelford had an incredible game in his own right. Although he did not take a deep kick and had only 6 points, he was Tide’s most effective player in hitting the basket throughout the game, and added 8 assists, the team record. His efforts there actually led Tide to +/- statistics with 37.
In terms of effort, James Rojas led the team in rebounds and blocks, despite having played just 13 minutes in total due to being elbowed in the nose and receiving a few fouls.
Darius Miles and Keon Ambrose-Hylton had significant playing time in the final quarter of the game and showed some good things. Miles seems to have a highly instinctive ability to pick up a ball and pass it quickly in traffic, while Ambrose-Hylton has those gadget arms that make his teammates look to give him a chance to bury it in every move.
Look, if you hit 23/43 three-point shots (with most of the failures coming from the backups after the game was over), you won’t lose too often. Alabama was scoring 3 points per minute very consistently for 3 quarters until they went up on the bench, and even a talented pitching team like LSU couldn’t keep up with that.
While this type of shooting success is not going to be sustainable game by game, the other aspects of this night certainly will be. In attack, Alabama constantly had LSU defenders a few feet behind each pass, and then they kept moving the ball until they got open eyes … So they converted.
Defensively, they put in tremendous effort. Almost all LSU points were hotly contested and contested, and Tide accumulated a series of thefts at the start to allow them to run for a lead so soon.
Absolute effort and consistent intensity is something we rarely see on an Alabama basketball team. There were no 5-minute drops at any point … Even the bench and walk-ons kept the effort going until the final bell.
This is winning basketball, which is why Alabama is striving to be one of the top 15 teams in the ranking and, currently, third place.