Nate Oats had a lot of questions about his team after dropping a game at home to Texas last Saturday night. Alabama responded well to his criticism, going on the road to Starkville and getting the dominant win Tuesday night. It did not start well, however, as the energy for the Crimson Tide looked similar to what it did against Texas and Mississippi State got out to a double-digit lead.
Labaron Philon was not going to let his team drop a third straight game, putting up over 30 points for the first time in his college career. Oats really questioned the will and want of his team, and Aiden Sherrell obviously took it to heart, putting up 22 points with five boards and two blocks.
After closing the first half on a 17-3 run to go into the half up two points, the Tide never looked back. The energy was the same coming out of the locker room, the three-ball was dropping, and unlike Saturday, Alabama was pretty automatic from the free-throw line. Alabama did a great job not allowing Mississippi State to get back into the game and really took the raucous crowd out of the game in the second half. It was about as perfect a game as you can play on the road, and hopefully we can see that same effort in Norman on Saturday.
As always, this team was short a few players with only eight scholarship players suiting up Tuesday night. Most noticeably missing were Taylor Bol Bowen, Keiten Bristow, and Latrell Wrightsell again, but their absence was not very noticeable as guys stepped up big, especially on the boards and defensive end of the court. After the Oklahoma game, the Tide will have a week off, which hopefully will allow this team to get as healthy as possible before the January 24th showdown against archrival Tennessee.