Alabama Basketball Falls on the Road to LSU, 90-76

In a game revolving around the glass, the Crimson Tide was out rebounded by the Tigers 49-31

Alabama Athletics

Alabama basketball entered Baton Rouge, La., on Wednesday night riding a four-game winning streak and leading the SEC in the rebounding game.

That meant nothing to the No. 22 LSU Tigers.

LSU defeated Alabama 90-76, dominating the glass and going 19-for-20 from the free-throw line to hand Alabama its eighth loss of the season.

“This was definitely not our best effort," Alabama head coach Nate Oats said in a statement. "We’ve been playing a lot better than that. We knew they were good. We listened to some of Coach [Will] Wade’s comments leading into the game. I think he kind of got on his guys, so we knew we were going to get a pretty good effort."

The Tigers had five players register double-digit points on the night, led by sophomore forward Emmitt Williams. Williams recorded 23 points and 11 rebounds for a double-double."

For the first 10 minutes of the game, the score remained relatively level. LSU owned the rebound game early, but Alabama seemingly always had an answer and kept the game close.

That all ended at the nine-minute mark. The Tigers began a 20-4 run to close out the half and give LSU an 18-point lead heading into the locker room.

At the break, the Tigers led the Crimson Tide 51-33.

"Our effort didn’t match theirs in the first half," Oats said. "They destroyed us on the boards. That’s two games in a row now where we just can’t rebound the ball. It just caused major problems."

Building off of its lead, LSU was able to thwart Alabama's every attempts to make a comeback. The Crimson Tide would cut the lead to nine points on two separate occasions, but for every score that Alabama made LSU seemed to respond in kind.

As the final buzzer rang, the scoreboard read 90-76 in favor of the Tigers.

"I thought our effort was better in the second half, but it just wasn’t enough," Oats said. "When you give up that big of a lead, give up 51 points in the first half, you really dig yourself a hole against a team like this that plays as hard as they do. That many points in the first half is going to be too hard to overcome. I thought our guys showed some fight in the second half."

The game was won on the glass. Of LSU's 29 rebounds, 14 of those came on offense. This limited Alabama's control of the ball and gave extra scoring opportunities to LSU.

In addition to the glass, the Crimson Tide only had 10 free-throw opportunities on the night, hitting only six of those 10. The Tigers, on the other hand, made 19 of their 20 free throws to swing the game even more in their favor.

In addition to Williams' stellar night for LSU, senior guard Skylar Mays had 18 points in the game, including going a perfect 8-for-8 from the free-throw line. Freshman forward Trendon Watford scored 17 points and led the team in rebounds with 15 for his own double-double. Sophomores guard Javonte Smart and forward Darius Days finished out the double-digit squad with 12 points apiece.

Freshman guard Jaden Shackelford led the scoring attack for Alabama, registering 21 points and three rebounds. Junior forward Alex Reese had 17 points on the night, while sophomore guard Kira Lewis, Jr. had 13. Lewis also registered eight assists in the game.

Despite playing 32 minutes in the game, junior guard John Petty, Jr. had a quiet night. Petty finished second on the team in rebounds with seven, but was only able to conjure up four points on the night. He was 1-for-7 from the floor.

Junior guard Herbert Jones led the Crimson Tide with 8 rebounds.

With the loss, Alabama drops to 12-8 on the season and is 4-3 in the SEC. LSU moves to 16-4 and remains undefeated in the conference at 7-0.

"We just couldn’t get over the hump so a lot of credit to them," Oats said. "They’re a hard-playing team. There’s a reason they’re first place in the SEC.”

The Crimson Tide returns home Saturday to take on Arkansas (5 p.m. CT, SEC Network).