🏈 GAME THREAD Alabama now 8-3 beats Mercer in Huntsville 80-79

[#80]

We tried our best to lose this game.

 

[bama alum]

Unreal...No way the game should have ended this closely.

 

[RTB X Bot]

 

[UA Press Release]

Four Alabama players reached double figures as freshman Alex Reese scored a career-high 10 points off the bench

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – The Alabama men's basketball team held off Mercer, 80-79, Tuesday night at the Rocket City Classic in front of a sold out crowd at the Von Braun Center. The Crimson Tide (8-3) outscored Mercer (6-6), 49-44, in the second half after trailing, 35-31, at halftime to outlast the Bears for the win.

Four Alabama players reached double figures, as freshman Collin Sexton dropped 15 points in the second half to total 21 points and help fend off the Bears late in the game.

Along with Sexton, fellow freshmen Alex Reese and John Petty combined for 20 second half points to push Alabama ahead. Reese and Petty finished with 10 and 18 points, respectively. Sophomore Dazon Ingram was crucial down the stretch, adding 11 points and eight rebounds. Junior Donta Hall also had a solid night, ending with nine points, six rebounds and four blocks.

Alabama finished the night shooting 45.2 percent from the floor (28-of-62), outscoring the Bears in the paint, 38-28, while scoring 20 points off of 16 Mercer turnovers. The Crimson Tide won the battle of the boards, outrebounding the Bears 37-32.

After a sluggish first half in which Mercer held a four-point lead, the Tide responded out of the break by scoring nine of the first 11 points to begin the second half to take a 40-37 lead at the 16:44 mark.

Momentum shifted back toward the Bears, who went on an 11-5 run over the next 3:27 to take its largest lead of the half, 56-49, with 10:10 to play.

That's when Alabama would take control. A three by Reese sparked a Crimson Tide 16-4 run over the next 5:24 to take a 65-58 lead with just under six minutes left to take control of the contest.

With less than 45 seconds in regulation, Ingram converted three-straight free throws to give Alabama the 80-72 lead with 27 left on the shot clock, but the Bears rallied within one point, using a 7-0 run, but missed the buzzer-beater three and Alabama ended the night on top.

In the first half, Alabama edged Mercer 20-10 in points in the paint and 10-4 in points off turnovers, but the Bears' 6-of-14 shooting from beyond the arc and 14-11 edge in bench points gave Mercer the 35-31 lead at the break.

The Crimson Tide will square off against Texas on Friday night in Birmingham's Legacy Arena as part of the annual BBVA Compass Vulcan Classic. Tipoff is scheduled for 8 p.m. CT and the game will be televised on ESPN 2. Tickets are still available and can be purchased through Ticketmaster.com.

Alabama Men’s Basketball Defeats Mercer, 80-79, In Second Annual Rocket City Classic - Alabama Athletics

 

[TerryP]

Is this a minor league ice hockey arena we're playing at. Floor is sweating worse than coach Avery trying to figure out our lineup

Where did you grow up, Easy? VBCC has been a hockey arena--one of its many uses--since the '80's. It was an odd night for conditions there--happens with multi-purpose facilities.

This site/arena is dangerous and embarrassing. Hopefully they can figure out issues before we play Texas.

I think we play Texas in b-ham?

Thank God. Hopefully not on ice like tonight.

:rolf: I've seen that mentioned somewhere ... err, yeah, a few times in this thread. oke2:

 

[TerryP]

A couple of thoughts here.

Reading back through the responses here there's a trend. I mentioned this on the first page of the thread ...

I've watched the scores on Mercer the last few weeks: a 20+ loss to UT, and a 2OT loss at Memphis caught my eye. I don't think this Bama team is at UT's level at this point. Bama did win by 12 when they faced Memphis on a neutral court. I haven't seen any spreads out for the game. With Key coming back and the team working through those "hiccups," I'm unsure what we'll see put out there. I'd be tempted to take Mercer +7.

I suspected we'd see some sloppy play last night. There's a lot of contributing factors I don't see mentioned here sans Key coming back for the first time. But since that's out of the bag it has to be taken into account. As does ...

A nine day break coming into the game: who wouldn't expect that kind of start. *
Mercer switching defenses so often in the first half. **
As we've discussed, CAJ is working on getting them down to a solid eight man rotation (with a new one added, starting, today.)

* We seen several of these slow starts this season. It's a problem, but not a problem to pull hair out over.
** Which had A LOT to do with the team starting out shooting so poorly. Look at 3pt% starting the game.

Now, speaking of percentages. The sting of the horrible free throw shooting with Lipscomb shouldn't be felt. Sure, I expect a few games where they'll do poorly again--happens with about every team out there. However, I'm even more confident than I have been those two games were anomalies. If you didn't catch it, they shot .783 from the line last night.

I've seen a few suggest CAJ should have brought Key off the bench because he was so rusty. CAJ said he told Braxton he was going from the first minute. Personally, I'm with the coach on this--"rip the bandaid off."

We play up to our competition.

Chew on this for a minute. Ringer, senior. Strawberry, senior. Jelks, senior. Rivers, senior. Strawberry, senior. Bama started three frosh in the game, one just returning to action, and this is characterized as "playing up to our competition."

The comment leaves me scratching my head in bewilderment...frosh, playing like seniors who've been together for a few years, but they're ... doesn't make sense to me.

 

[TUSKtimes]

The Hockey team is called the Havoc and with all the condensation on the floor, their hockey team was still reeking it. My overall impression of this team is that we are as mercurial as they come, but fundamentally, not so much. Was that the worst final 10 seconds of basketball we've ever seen? Nothing easy and simple and the more pressure in the game the fewer fundamentals we execute.

I get that 3 point shots come and go and last night they definitely went, but to keep clanging shots off the rim on point-blank layups and attempted dunks are just examples of bad basketball. And we've shown this nasty trait all season long. We couldn't execute simple bounce passes and nothing is clean when we're inbounding the ball. That's more havoc of a different kind.

Our football team devotes days to fundamentals even on a limited practice schedule. I hope this basketball team has the good sense to do the same.