Alabama just couldn’t miss it.
Sort of like a fever dream of a basketball game, Crimson Tide’s first game as a qualified team was, frankly, outrageous.
A 105-75 victory at LSU was his eighth in a row thanks to an unconscious first half that defied logic and never really finished. Alabama broke its own 3-point SEC record with 23 and fell slightly short of the NCAA’s 28 mark.
Alabama (12-3, 7-0 SEC) has now achieved its longest winning streak since 2002, while taking the lead of two games in the SEC standings. The 105 points corresponded to a record from the Nate Oats era, after beating that total in an overtime victory in Georgia last year.
He did it in a stunning way on a night when the advantage reached 43 in the second half. Freshman Darius Miles set a record of 3 with 3:00 to play on a night when Tide scored 23 out of 43 deep. That’s an astonishing 53.5% to break the record set at Auburn in last year’s overtime. Tide needed 59 attempts to make the previous record of 22 last year or 37.2%.
They did this without one of their best snipers making a single 3. Jaden Shackelford scored 0 to 3 from the bottom, but led the team in plus-minus on the stats sheet.
John Petty protected him. The oldest was the star at the beginning made his first seven attempts at 3 points and finished 8 out of 10 long distance.
“Kicking the ball so well, it just feels like another day in the gym, another day in the lab shooting,” said Petty. “When I feel like I’m in a zone like this, I just feel like I’m at the gym shooting alone.”
A cast came together from there to cross the 100-point mark for the first time this season.
Petty had 21 of his 24 in the first half, when Alabama led 31 before the break against an LSU team that won four straight games before Tuesday night.
“I was a little worried when I got into the game, it would be a bit stubborn or something, Oats said afterwards.
In fact, it was just the opposite.
No. 18 Tide fired and never really slowed down. He made six of the first seven behind the hoop to take an 18-4 lead. Eventually, it became a 17-0 race driven by Petty, and then freshman Josh Primo and point guard Jahvon Quinerly.
The lead reached 20 in the second TV timeout and was 23 after Petty hit her sixth straight in a row before others got involved. Herbert Jones added 13.
Primo made his first five deep while Quinerly connected in his first three. Both joined Petty north of 20 and both won 22.
The shooting was nothing that Oats had experienced as a trainer.
“Are we playing for first place at the SEC and hanging out with a lot of guys filming like this? No, I never … it was kind of crazy, ”he said.
Alabama went into the break making 14 of 19 from the perimeter with a 60-32 lead. That advantage increased to 89-46 when the hot kick continued after the break. Quinerly bet 3-on-3 to help push the lead into his 43-point sneak peek.
The early arrival of intermediate minutes was the only thing to delay the offensive explosion that reached the 100 point mark with 3:17 remaining. Oats was not very enthusiastic about the way the 30-point victory ended.
“I was a little disappointed with how we ended the game in the last eight (minutes),” said Oats. “We will clean up this game. There may not be a lot of cleaning, but we will do a cleaning. … As soon as we think there is nothing more to improve, you are going backwards. “
Alabama is host to the Mississippi State (9-6, 4-3 SEC) at 5 pm CT Saturday, with a chance to tie the team’s nine-game winning streak in 2002-03.
This post will be updated.
Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or in Facebook.