Takeaways from Alabama Basketball's Dominant Win Over Mississippi State

Thoughts and observations from the Crimson Tide's fourth win in a row.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — No. 24 Alabama basketball won its fourth game in a row on Saturday night, improving to 8-1 in conference play with a 99-67 win over Mississippi State in Coleman Coliseum. 

Here are a few of my thoughts and observations from the win:

1. Alabama answers blue-collar challenge.

Coming off a game where Alabama needed a huge comeback to beat Georgia on the road, head coach Nate Oats challenged his team. He said the team looked "soft" against Georgia, particularly on the glass, where the Crimson Tide got heavily outrebounded which led to the 16-point deficit that needed to be overcome. 

Against Mississippi State, the team was as tough as could be. 

Alabama dominated the glass, outrebounding the Bulldogs 48-37, and coming up with 20 offensive rebounds. The Crimson Tide forced 18 turnovers, 13 of which were steals.

Perhaps the most telling stat was blue-collar points. Alabama's staff tracks blue-collar points for both teams, which include hustle-type plays such as charges taken, floor dives, deflections, etc. After the game, Oats said Alabama racked up 118 blue-collar points to Mississippi State's 64.

"This is a tough team, Mississippi State has only been outrebounded twice all year, this was one of them," Oats said. "We challenged our guys after the rebounding debacle at Georgia, it was awful at Georgia. We bounced back and did a great job."

What's more, is the blue-collar effort led to one of the best defensive performances of the season for the Crimson Tide. Alabama allowed just 24 points in the first half to the Bulldogs, and the 67 total points allowed were Alabama's second-fewest in SEC play this year. 

Mississippi State has a reputation for being one of the toughest, most physical, hardest playing teams in not only the SEC, but in all of college basketball. It's the reason they've been able to knock off teams like both Auburn and Tennessee this season. 

Alabama didn't care about that reputation. The team came in, punched them in the mouth, and never looked back. The performance was dominating in every aspect, and the blue-collar total was indicative of it. 

If the Crimson Tide can turn a corner and get this kind of blue-collar effort in every game, it's going to be hard for anyone to beat it. 

2. Offense lives without the 3. 

There's a misconception out there that because of the sheer volume of threes taken by Alabama on a game-to-game basis, that the team "lives and dies by the 3," meaning Alabama wins when it makes a bunch of threes and loses when it misses. 

That theory was debunked again on Saturday night. 

The Crimson Tide took its season-high in 3-point attempts against Mississippi State with 48. Alabama only made 15 of those attempts, good for 31.2 percent. That clip was its fifth-worst of the season, and worst in a home game this year.

Despite that, Alabama scored 99 points and won the game by 32.

The Crimson Tide offense was fueled by the aforementioned blue-collar effort. Because of the 20 offensive rebounds, Alabama got 83 shot attempts, a whopping 28 more than Mississippi State got in the game. Alabama forced 18 turnovers, which led to 27 points off turnovers and a chunk of its 19 fast break points. 

"If you get 30 more [field goals than the other team], you don't have to shoot as high of a percentage," Oats said. "Turnovers, offensive rebounds, both of those things are measured off effort and I thought our effort was pretty good tonight."

That didn't stop Alabama from shooting the threes, and they were getting a number of high quality looks that would have made the game even more out of hand if they had converted. 

Like I mentioned earlier, an Alabama team playing this hard and with this much effort spells a world of trouble for its opponents, as seen by the final score on Saturday. Not to mention if Alabama gets this kind of effort, and it's threes fall, it's going to be a long night for whoever is opposite the team in crimson.

3. Mo Dioubate played the best game of his young career.

Freshman forward Mo Dioubate's role has been expanding as of late, thanks to the toughness and energy he brings to the floor with every minute he plays. 

Against Mississippi State, he played a season-high in minutes with 19, and in those minutes was able to set career-highs in both points with 14 and rebounds with nine.

Dioubate was all over the floor all night, acting like a heat-seeking missile to loose balls and rebounds, while showing off his strength and toughness inside with multiple difficult finishes at the rim through contact. 

“He’s now just getting comfortable with how we want him to play,” Oats said. “We kind of had to figure out how we wanted him to play. He’s tough enough, he can be like a small-ball five. I mean Draymond Green played small-ball five for the Warriors. They won a few championships with him doing it.”

The comparison to Green fits the bill. Both Dioubate and Green are 6-foot-7, but play much bigger than their height by using their strength and motor to will themselves to rebounds and putbacks. 

Alabama has mostly used Dioubate at the power forward spot, and his rebounding ability has freed up Grant Nelson to be able to play more at the five, even whenever the opposing team has a bigger lineup in and Alabama can't put four guards on the floor. 

“He’s always been a tough guy,” Oats said. “From the minute he stepped into practice, live stuff. Nobody wants to guard him because he’s going to come downhill. You’re going to take a shoulder through your chin. He plays with some force and some physicality and he rebounds hard. We needed a little of that, so when he was able to get comfortable enough we could put him in more, I thought it made us tougher.”

Dioubate has done the best thing a freshman can possibly do while trying to carve out playing time in the rotation — he's specialized in his role. Alabama knows what it's going to get when Dioubate is on the floor, and there is room on every basketball team for someone to come off the bench and scrap to do the dirty work he provides. 

Dioubate left the game with the hard hat, signifying him winning the blue-collar player of the game. I think it's safe to say it won't be his last.

The Sequence That Gave Nate Oats Goosebumps and Embodied Blue Collar Basketball