🏀 Alabama beats Charleston Southern

[bamaraider]

The Alabama men’s basketball team held the nation’s top-scoring offense to a season-low 45 points in a 59-45 victory over Charleston Southern Saturday night in Coleman Coliseum. The win pushes the Tide’s home regular-season winning streak to 15 games.


“I thought limiting their offense was the key to the game,” said UA head coach Anthony Grant. “We did a great job for 40 minutes from a defensive standpoint tonight. Charleston Southern is a team that came into this game averaging 92.1 points-per-game, and they have a variety of weapons on their team so we knew we had to perform well defensively. I challenged our guys to take it one possession at a time and they really responded.”


The Alabama (5-4) defense frustrated a potent Charleston Southern (3-5) offense, forcing 25 fouls and 14 turnovers. Playing without senior guard Trevor Releford, who was held out for precautionary reasons, the Tide’s offensive effort was led by sophomore Retin Obasohan’s career-high 22 points to go along with a career-high nine rebounds and six steals. Thirteen of Obasahan’s 22 points came at the charity stripe, where he went 13-of-14 on the night. Junior Rodney Cooper added a season-high 16 points as the pair accounted for over half of Alabama’s offensive output.


Alabama trailed 15-7 early in the opening half before a 9-0 run resulted in its first lead of the game at 16-15. The Tide then extended its lead to 20-17 in the closing minutes before Charleston Southern fought back within one point to make it a 24-23 game at halftime.


The two teams remained neck-and-neck for most of the second half before the Tide went on an 8-0 run to extend its lead to 41-32 near the eight-minute mark. From that point on it was all Alabama with Tide finishing things off with a 14-point win.


Alabama will have a quick turnaround as it returns to action Tuesday night when the Tide hosts the No. 12/8 Wichita State Shockers at 8 p.m. CT on ESPNU. The Shockers, who improved to 10-0 with a win over Tennessee on Saturday, will come into the game as the second-highest non-conference opponent to ever play at Coleman Coliseum.

Some stats for you:

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<thead style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 10.909090995788574px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">[TR="class: team-color-strip, bgcolor: transparent"]
[TH="align: right"] [/TH]
[TH="align: right"]CHSO

[/TH]
[TH="align: right"]ALA

[/TH]
[/TR]
</thead><tbody style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 10.909090995788574px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">[TR="class: even, bgcolor: transparent"]
[TD="align: left"]Points[/TD]
[TD]45[/TD]
[TD]59[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: odd, bgcolor: transparent"]
[TD="bgcolor: #F1F1F1, align: left"]FG Made-Attempted[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #F1F1F1"]14-43 (.326)[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #F1F1F1"]15-43 (.349)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: even, bgcolor: transparent"]
[TD="align: left"]3P Made-Attempted[/TD]
[TD]4-17 (.235)[/TD]
[TD]6-20 (.300)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: odd, bgcolor: transparent"]
[TD="bgcolor: #F1F1F1, align: left"]FT Made-Attempted[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #F1F1F1"]13-17 (.765)[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #F1F1F1"]23-32 (.719)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: even, bgcolor: transparent"]
[TD="align: left"]Fouls (Tech/Flagrant)[/TD]
[TD]25 (0/0)[/TD]
[TD]15 (0/0)[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

 

[psychojoe]

Jacobs dinged his shoulder again last night but was able to play through it.
Cooper was a great 3 point shooter in high school. Maybe he will get a confidence boost from last night

 

[bamaraider]

Cooper has to be the most streaky basketball player I have ever seen. Guy literally has no consistency. Defense did a good job at defending the perimeter though. Charleston was 42% on the season before the game and got held to under 30%. Team still has no identity offensively.

 

[TheChief]

That may well be Grant's coaching obit if Bama doesn't beat Xavier and one of UCLA and Creighton. Holding to my promise: they're going to storm out of December on a roll after winning against at least two top 25 teams then do what it takes in the SEC to clinch a bid and roll into the dance.

 

[psychojoe]

Tuesday night will be a tall order, especially if Releford cannot go.

 

[TheChief]

I posted Creighton as a "need to win", but it's Wichita State.

 

[bamaraider]

I'll do a game preview.