Tide Trumps Tigers in Red Stick
It was a road win Nate Oats and Alabama had to have to keep its SEC title hopes intact.
The No.16 Crimson Tide got it, 109-92 over LSU in Baton Rouge.
Five players scored at least 15 points for Bama. Mark Sears led the way with 23 points. Latrell Wrightsell had 23, Nick Pringle 17, Rylan Griffen 16 and Aaron Estrada added 15.
That's balance. That's a winning formula on the road in the SEC.
Oats said, "Big Road win. LSU came ready to go. I thought we made some decent adjustments. We thought we needed to turn them over more.
"The job Nick Pringle did in the second half was really good.
"I thought our back court was pretty good.
Hard Hat winner wrightsell added, "It's definitely a confidence booster. We're not supposed to pass up open three's. That helps us play free and fast.
"It was a big win. To win the conference, we need road wins. LSU is a pretty good team. Beating them was a confidence booster for us."
Oats said, "We want to play fast. Player development's been our biggest thing on offense. We've been doing that since I was at Romulus High. We've been doing it 20 years. We play fast to be more efficient.
"We took 81 shots. That's a lot of shots. To have 21 more field goal attempts it's going to be hard for [LSU] to win the game.
"Nick Pringle was ready to go. He gave us a lot of energy."
Wrightsell had ten boards for his first Alabama double-double.
Next up for the Crimson Tide [17-7, 9-2 SEC] is a Saturday home game vs. Texas A&M with a tip time set for 11 a.m. CT.
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