Toughness Epitomizes Alabama Basketball in Gritty Victory Over Mississippi State

The Crimson Tide walked into a hostile environment against one of the hardest-playing teams in the country, and came away with a win.

STARKVILLE, Miss. — Sixteen.

That's the stat that made the biggest difference on Saturday night, as Alabama walked out of Humphrey Coliseum with an 82-74 win and a 3-0 record in SEC play.

But it wasn't 16 if a normal stat, like points, rebounds, or even turnovers. It was 16 blue-collar points.

Blue-collar points are tracked by the Alabama coaching staff, and they track what Oats considers to be "blue-collar" plays that don't always show up on the stat sheet. Things like deflections, offesive rebounds, dives on the floor, charges taken, and plenty more.

That number, 16, is how many more blue-collar points Alabama had compared to Mississippi State in the game. What's more, Alabama head coach Nate Oats said he considers the Bulldogs to be one of the hardest-playing teams in the entire country.

"Coach Jans is one of the best coaches in the country at coaching defense, toughness," Oats said. "This is one of the tougher teams— I mean, you saw what they did to Tennessee here last game. I think Tennessee is one of the tougher teams and they about out-toughed them for most of the game."

Across the board, Crimson Tide players stepped up defensively, as well as upped their hustle in order to make winning plays all throughout the night. 

Aaron Estrada had five rebounds and two steals. Latrell Wrightsell, who also had one of his best offensive games of the season, was an absolute pest defensively, and found himself on the floor diving for loose ball after loose ball. 

"Different ways when we needed stops, we were able to get them. We had some tough rebounds. We saw it show up in different ways," Oats said. "[Mississippi State] is a team that's as hard-playing as anyone in the country. I told them if we can beat them in the blue-collar stuff, we'd have a chance to beat them in the game, because that's really what they hang their hat on."

Forward Mouhamed Dioubate, who made a lasting impression in his limited playing time against South Carolina on Tuesday, once again found himself making a huge impact. The freshman grabbed three rebounds in eight minutes, all three coming on the offensive end. 

"He's a big value," Wrightsell said. "We talk about 'Mudita,' it's something we just put in, it's about celebrating each other's success. He's done that this whole time and now it's starting to pay off, too. So he's been a huge part to our success."

Perhaps the player who embodied toughness the most was Grant Nelson. Nelson has been in a seemingly never-ending slump offensively, and it's only gotten worse in SEC play. He scored nine points tonight on inefficient shooting, but he never let that effect the effort he played with in every other facet of the game. 

By the time the clock hit triple zeroes, Nelson logged 33 minutes, the second-most on the team. He grabbed nine rebounds, blocked three shots, and came up with three steals, all while being the primary defender on All-SEC big man Tolu Smith for much of the game due to Alabama's foul trouble.

"I thought [Nelson] was great. He used his length, he stood [Smith] up, he was able to do it without fouling him much," Oats said. "I thought's Grant's defense on him was as good as anybody's."

Now, after a 3-game losing streak in December when many were considering giving up on this Alabama team, they've won five games in a row and sit at the top of the SEC standings. At first, this team was all offense, but slowly but surely they're getting better at defending, and getting tougher little by little.

"I thought we played harder than a hard-playing team," Oats said. "I thought our guys answered the bell when I challenged them to do that."

Alabama Basketball Earns Hard-Fought Road Win in Starkville