Victory Thread: Alabama 66, Miss. St. 63

Mississippi State may have come into Coleman tonight at 1-6 in SEC play, but they showed up intending to win. They brought a level of intensity to the floor that Alabama hasn’t seen often in the early season. To make things even tougher, the Tide had a rough night shooting the three pointer.

Still, the Tide just had a little too much firepower at the end and they managed to overcome what had been a seven point halftime deficit to stay unbeaten in SEC play. As Nate Oats has said, if the defense shows up to play every night then the three will simply determine the margin of victory, and that was the case on this night. Alabama had a rough first half on the defensive end, they allowed only 19 points in the first 15 minutes of the second half and seized control. There was no quit in the Bulldogs, however, and they pushed Alabama right to the limit.

To be sure, Alabama will need to play much better against a brutal stretch to close SEC play if they want to be the number one seed that they are currently projected. In particular, shooting 18% on 28 three point attempts isn’t going to cut it. Still, they pulled out yet another conference win and are sitting pretty atop the league.

Next up is a trip to Norman on Saturday for the SEC/Big 12 Challenge.

Roll Tide.