Victory Thread: Alabama Basketball takes down the defending national champs in Baylor, 87-78

The Alabama Crimson Tide started this season with high hopes after a deep run in the NCAA tournament, and those expectations were only elevated when they defeated Gonzaga and Houston in the first chunk of the season.

Since then, though, the Tide has lost some bad games to weak teams such as Georgia, Missouri, and Mississippi State, and doubt has started to creep in.

Today, though, the energy and swagger was back. Alabama jumped out to an early lead on Baylor with some high energy play and a much needed flurry of three pointers, and they never really looked back the rest of the game.

Jahvon Quinerly and Jaden Shackelford led the charge with 20 and 19 points each, and freshman JD Davison had what was probably his best game of the season to round out a trio of guard play that was just too much for Baylor.

Throw in the return of Juwan Gary from his face injury, and you had a team playing with a tremendous amount of energy, winning rebounds and scrambles around the basket, blocking shots, and drawing a whole lot of fouls with an aggressive offensive mindset— and, importantly, making the resulting free throws.

The Bears are a phenomenal basketball team that hit nearly 50% of their three point attempts to stay in the game, but a steal and a thunderous dunk from Davison put the game out of reach in the final 2 minutes as Alabama took the victory.

Next is a rematch with #1 Auburn and then a showdown with Kentucky as Alabama closes out the toughest three-game stretch in the country.

Roll Tide!