Aden Holloway paid the ultimate compliment to Houston Mallette after another Bama win

It won't be obvious in the box score, but Alabama senior wing Houston Mallette was pivotal in the Crimson Tide earning a 90-83 road win over LSU for their sixth consecutive victory.

It's something that junior guard Aden Holloway wasn't going to let go unnoticed in the postgame.

"They were trying to make a comeback push, getting bucket after bucket. They were about to get a stop, and Houston put a stop to everything with back-to-back O-boards," Holloway said. "I think Houston really won the game for us today, for sure."

Mallette, who wears the No. 95 to represent the 95% of the time you don't have the ball when playing basketball to highlight the dirty work that wins games, made several critical plays for the Crimson Tide down the stretch to lift them to the seven-point win.

In 22 minutes, Mallette only scored six points, connecting on 2-of-3 attempts from three, but it was his offensive rebounding late in the game that helped seal the win.

With LSU staging a late rally and Alabama leading by just eight with 1:40 to go, it was back-to-back offensive rebounds by Mallette that extended a possession and ultimately led to a London Jemison put-back dunk to push the lead back to 10.

Latrell Wrightsell was forced to take a long three as the shot clock expired, and Mallette fought for position to snag the board. Seconds later, Jemison attempted a three that was slightly off, but Mallette was there again to grab the rebound, wisely calling a timeout as he was falling out of bounds.

Just look at this sequence:

That's the type of stuff that wins basketball games.

Houston Mallette was Alabama's co-hard hat award winner against LSU

Mallette's late effort helped him secure a share of Alabama's hard hat award with sophomore center Aiden Sherrell, who dominated the early part of the second half before getting into foul trouble.

Mallette's energy, effort, and leadership have been invaluable to the 2025-26 Crimson Tide. He's only scoring seven points per game and shooting just 38% from the floor, but Mallette is the quintessential glue-guy who is willing to do whatever it takes to win basketball games.

And oftentimes in basketball, the ball finds good energy. Mallette has that in spades, and it has back-to-back games in which he has made critical plays to help deliver an Alabama win.

During Wednesday's win over Arkansas, Mallette hit two massive three-pointers in overtime, including one with under a minute to go in the second OT period to give Alabama a four-point lead.

He's the type of player that every good team needs, and he's embraced the role with Alabama in his final season of college basketball.