No. 2 Alabama Can Grow From Hard-Fought, Gritty Win Over Mississippi State

The Crimson Tide has been winning in style for much of 2022-23, but it can also win ugly — which is important.

Austin Hannon | Jan 26, 2023

In this story:

Alabama Crimson Tide

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Good teams win. Great teams cover. For much of the season, No. 2 Alabama has been doing just that. The Crimson Tide has been winning — and more often than not, in impressive fashion.

But no team is perfect — especially in college basketball. There will be losses. There will also be hard-fought wins that maybe should have been losses. Alabama suffered defeats against No. 19 UConn and No. 14 Gonzaga. The Crimson Tide is a better team than both of the squads it lost to, but that’s basketball.

In a season full of great nights for second-ranked Alabama, Wednesday night’s 66-63 win over Mississippi State wasn’t one of them.

The Bulldogs (12-8, 1-7 SEC) came into the game losers in four consecutive contests and seven of their last eight. But with that comes desperation and hunger to grab a huge win. And Mississippi State showed that for 40 minutes inside Coleman Coliseum Wednesday night.

“The SEC is a tough league,” head coach Nate Oats said. “This team has only won one game in the SEC and you saw how tough it was to get a win. Gotta give a ton of credit to Mississippi State. They came ready to play. I thought they had a great plan. They improved more than we improved from the first time we played them. I didn’t think we did a great job of getting our guys ready to go.”

Shots that hadn’t been going in for the Bulldogs this season were for much of the game. The 168th-ranked offense in KenPom shot 57% from the field in the first half.

On the other hand, the Crimson Tide (18-2, 8-0 SEC) probably played its worst offensive game of the season. For the second straight game, Alabama shot poorly at 37% from the field and 18% from deep. Other than Nick Pringle’s 2-for-2 from the field, Brandon Miller was the only Crimson Tide player to go above the 50% mark — and he was only able to get nine shots up.

And yet, which school on Highway 82 won the game? Alabama did.

“We didn’t start the game like we needed to, but I give our guys a lot of credit,” Oats said. “[In the] second half, they found a way to get a win in a tight game. We haven't had very many tight games, so it's not the worst that we had to figure out how to win a close game especially when you’re down.”

The Crimson Tide continues to show — no matter what gets thrown at it, it can find a way to come out on top. Because that’s what elite teams do. And Alabama is an elite team.

“If you're going to win an SEC championship, you got to win some games [when] you don't play your best,” Oats said.

“I think we’ll bounce back. Hopefully we can learn off a win. A mature group can come in after a win and learn just as much as they can after a loss. […] We’ll learn from it — hopefully be better because it’s not going to be the last close game we have for sure.”

It won’t be the final close game of the season for the Crimson Tide. It’s better to learn while winning than in a loss — and that’s exactly what Alabama did.

The Crimson Tide will take a short break from conference play for the SEC-Big 12 Challenge this weekend. Alabama will travel to Norman to take on the Oklahoma Sooners on Saturday afternoon.

Tipoff from the Lloyd Noble Center is set for 1 p.m. CT on ESPN.

See Also: