Labaron Philon Jr. and Aiden Sherrell had career-best performances for the Crimson Tide on a night with just eight scholarship players availble to play.
Alabama was on its way to a third straight SEC loss after a shaky start in Starkville on Tuesday night. With only eight scholarship players available, it was going to take great effort from those eight players to produce a comeback.
Fortunately for Nate Oats, the players did step up. No. 18 Alabama erased an early 14-point deficit and turned it into a dominant 97-80 road win over Mississippi State. By the final minute, Oats was able to put his walk-ons in. It was already known before the game that Alabama would be without Collins Onyejiaka, Davion Hannah, Latrell Wrightsell Jr. and likely Taylor Bol Bowen. Forward Keitenn Bristow was added to the final availability report as unavailable, leaving Alabama's frontcourt extremely thin against Mississippi State The Crimson Tide found itself trailing 29-15 with less than eight minutes to go in the first half. Nothing was going right for Alabama offensively, and the Bulldogs were draining 3-pointers. Both trends were reversed as Alabama went on a 21-5 run to close out the half and came out strong out of the break as well. Philon came alive for the Tide during that run at the end of the first half. He was responsible for nine of the 21 points and finished with 32 points, a new career high. It was also a career night for Tide forward Aiden Sherrell, who is still recovering from injury. Sherrell had 22 points, five rebounds and two blocks.The defense also stepped up. Early on, Mississippi State held a pretty sizable lead in the rebounding margin. Alabama ended up winning the rebounding battle. The Bulldogs made four of their first seven 3-point attempts and only made five more the remainder of the game. With another road game coming on Saturday at Oklahoma, Alabama could not afford to drop a third straight SEC game this early in conference play if it wants to keep its hopes alive for a regular season title or double-bye in the SEC tournament.Katie Windham is the assistant editor for BamaCentral, primarily covering football, basketball, gymnastics and softball. She is a two-time graduate of the University of Alabama and has covered a variety of Crimson Tide athletics since 2019 for outlets like The Tuscaloosa News, The Crimson White and the Associated Press before joining BamaCentral full time in 2021. Windham has covered College Football Playoff games, the Women's College World Series, NCAA March Madness, SEC Tournaments and championships in multiple sports.
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