The Alabama Crimson Tide were already being noticed all around the country by basketball fans and national sports media.
However, Alabama on Saturday broke a program record to put even more people on notice of what is going on in Tuscaloosa. Bama scored the most points in an SEC game in program history on a pair of Darius Miles free-throws with less than five seconds left in the game.
The record that had stood since 1976 vs. LSU is now officially broken. The new benchmark is now an incredible 115 points after the Tide won at home 115-82 over the Georgia Bulldogs.
Miles is a bench player who doesn’t usually see many minutes of the Tide’s games. Yet, with a massive lead late in the game, he came in and threw down a monster dunk in the last 25 seconds of play.
Shortly afterwards, he got fouled in the paint with a chance to break the record at the charity stripe. He did just that and will now go down in Tide basketball history as just a freshman.
To get to that point, though, the starters had some work to do first.
John Petty was one of those guys, and again proved himself as a leader and a weapon on the court. Petty had 13 points against Georgia and spoke to SEC Network after the game to discuss Alabama’s dominant performance.
On what it was like playing in this explosive offense on the day, Petty said, “I mean, when we have guys making shots at a high level it’s kind of scary. We have fun within our system.”
Herb Jones came to play as usual but broke even his own personal single game record for points by scoring 21 points against the Dawgs. Believe it or not, this was the first game Jones has ever scored in the 20s. Jones also snatched five rebounds and dished out four assists in a career night for the senior.
Josh Primo had 19 points, and Jaden Shackleford scored 18 to round out the top three scorers for the Bama hoops team today.
Primo has slowly become a key piece for the Tide this season and continues to improve each and every week.
Offense is thought to be Alabama’s strength this season, and thanks to the weekly barrage of three-pointers made, it probably is. Against the Bulldogs, though, the Tide were very impressive on the defensive end of the ball.
On how Alabama’s defense has been locked in this season, Petty remarked, “Coach Oats always said once you play hard and do everything right on the defensive end, the offense will come easily. All of our guys really bought into that.”
Georgia’s leading scorer was a bench player, K.D. Johnson, who had 24 points — the highest total for either team on the court. While Johnson is a very good player, the reason he was at the top was that players like Wheeler and Fagan were held to relatively low point totals.
The Alabama defense was all over Fagan and wouldn’t open up the floor for anyone in a Georgia uniform, causing the Bulldogs to take many ill-advised threes instead of driving to the rim. This brought on an embarrassing 10.5% shooting percentage from beyond the arc.
Bama on the other hand shot 60% from three, which has become the norm for the Tide this season.
To end his interview, Petty added, “I didn’t think we would get this far honestly, but with the guys we have, the senior leadership, and the dedication this year, I couldn’t picture it any other way.” He is starting to see how far this team can really go.
Alabama only has four regular-season games left and looks primed for a two-seed for the NCAA Tournament if they can play strong down the stretch. Oats will begin preparing his team to travel to College Station on Wednesday to take on the Texas A&M Aggies to keep their winning ways going.
Hayden Crigler is a contributing college football and college basketball writer for Yellowhammer News. You can contact him through email: hayden@new-yhn.local or on Twitter: @hayden_crigler.
