Alabama Basketball Dismantles Mississippi State 85-48 in SEC Tournament Quarterfinals
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — It wasn't as close as the score indicated, and the scoreboard registered it as being a rout.
Alabama basketball got a shot in the arm on Friday afternoon in Bridgestone Arena at the SEC Tournament quarterfinals, defeating Mississippi State 85-48 to advance to Saturday's semifinals.
The 37-point margin of victory was the fourth-largest victory in SEC Tournament history — the biggest margin since Tennessee defeated Auburn 97-59 in 2016.
"It was nice to get the win," Alabama coach Nate Oats said. "I think the fact that Mississippi State was able to beat Kentucky kinda made our guys wake up — plus they played us really tough two games in a row. It was close all the way to the end both times we played the guys. I think our guys were really locked in and it really goes to the senior leadership making sure that our guys are locked in."
The game started with a bang as Alabama's Jaden Shackelford sank a three-pointer on the team's opening possession. Four unanswered points by Mississippi State gave the Bulldogs a 4-3 lead, but it would be their only lead of the contest.
After falling behind, the Crimson Tide pieced together a 7-0 run, then an 8-0 run to jump ahead 18-7. When Mississippi State cut the Alabama lead to 10 with 8:54 left in the first half, Alabama responded with a 21-1 run powered by four threes — two by John Petty Jr. — to pull away for good, 43-13.
Just before halftime, Oats subbed in Keon Ambrose-Hylton and Darius Miles — a signal that it was time to begin resting players. At the break, Alabama led Mississippi State 47-19 — the largest halftime lead in an SEC Tournament game since 1979.
The only negative was at the 12:35 mark of the second half, when freshman guard Josh Primo suffered an injury to his left knee and immediately taken back to the locker room for evaluation. Primo had fallen onto the court diving after a loose ball, with a Mississippi State player landing on his leg.
After the game, Oats revealed that Primo would undergo an MRI to determine the exact nature and severity of the injury.
Primo had tallied eight points and four rebounds and a block prior to being helped off the court. The injury sparked another run by the Crimson Tide, which scored 10 of the subsequent 12 points to gain a 69-33 lead with 10:42 remaining.
Alabama finished the game scoring 14 of the game's last 19 points. The 37-point margin of victory for the Crimson Tide is the largest SEC Tournament win in program history.
"That was definitely a statement game," Petty said. "We just come here to play our game. We want to play good on both sides of the basketball. We're really not worried about what everybody else thinks, what everybody else does — we just want to make sure we play basketball at a high level for ourselves, for our coaching staff and for our program.
"Every game is a statement game for us so we're going to come out and put it all out every day."
From the floor, Alabama shot 48 percent and was 13-of-36 from beyond the arc. The Crimson Tide only shot eight free throws, but made all eight of them.
Sophomore guard Jahvon Quinerly finished with the most points for Alabama with 14. Shackelford was second with 13 points, and redshirt-freshman forward Juwan Gary was the only other double-digit shooter with 11 points.
Jones topped the team in both rebounds and assists with seven apiece.
The game was possibly one of the Crimson Tide's best overall performances of the season. Statistically, 47 of Alabama's points came off of the bench compared to Mississippi State's five and the Crimson Tide took advantage of the Bulldogs' 18 turnovers by scoring a season-high 30 points off of those turnovers.
"I feel like we came out and established ourselves on the defensive end," Jones said. "Of course our shots were falling but I think that started on the defensive end and started with us getting stops and not giving up offensive rebounds and we just played with a ton of confidence out of the gate."
Alabama will face the winner of Game 7 of the SEC Tournament between No. 4 Tennessee and No. 5 Florida (approx. 25 minutes following conclusion of Game 6, ESPN).
