No. 23 Alabama women’s basketball hosted Mississippi State on Sunday afternoon and came away with a 85-78 victory.
“It was a huge win,” head coach Kristy Curry said. “I think they had a NET [ranking] of 34, we do of 32. They’re an NCAA Tournament team.”
The Bulldogs were a more daunting foe coming into the contest than their 2-4 and 11th-place SEC record implied. All four losses came against teams then-ranked in the top 20 of the AP poll, including No. 8 Oklahoma and No. 5 Vanderbilt. Against the Commodores, Mississippi State only lost by a slim 89-84 margin. The next game, which was the last before going to Tuscaloosa, saw the team upset then-No. 7 Kentucky.
Similar to its most recent loss to Tennessee, the Crimson Tide began Sunday’s first quarter on a heater, going up 8-0 in the first three minutes and forcing Bulldogs head coach Sam Purcell to call a timeout.
The stoppage was effective in halting Alabama’s momentum and resoundingly reversed it, as Mississippi State went on a 10-1 run of its own over the next three minutes and took a 10-9 lead.
That stretch magnified an uncharacteristically poor start for the Crimson Tide in the turnover department. The team committed eight in the first, and despite getting the number down to three in the second, the 11-turnover total in the first half was higher than average. Alabama has hovered around 15 per game since conference play started.
“You have to get a feel for the game,” Curry said. “They were switching everything, and I thought we tried to do too much to get the ball inside.”
Things stabilized after that point, and neither team created more than a 4-point separation for the rest of the first two periods. The score was 35-31 in favor of Alabama at halftime, and even with a quick 7-0 Bulldog run coming out of the break, Alabama fired back and retook the lead. At the 4:00 mark in the third, the Crimson Tide took a 51-45 lead that was the largest either team held since the score was 8-0.
Alabama was helped most by guard Jessica Timmons, who averages 15.8 points per game on the year but scored 21 through the first three quarters. Guard Diana Collins chipped in 13 in the same amount of time.
Keeping with the tone of the game, Alabama gave up that lead in a matter of minutes, and Mississippi State pulled ahead at the end of the third. After a 3-point buzzer beater from Collins was called off following replay review, the score was left at 60-56 Bulldogs going into the fourth.
If the final period belonged to one player, it was guard Karly Weathers. Amid the back-and-forth battle, Weathers scored 11 points, including three shots from deep. Her layup with 4:17 to go gave the Crimson Tide the lead, and on the next possession she hit a 3 to make it 71-66. Alabama never surrendered that lead.
Bolstered by another Weathers 3-pointer and big late-game baskets from Timmons and guard Ace Austin, the Crimson Tide pulled away and kept the Bulldogs at arm’s length for the remainder of the fourth.
Timmons’ 28 points topped her previous season high of 25, which came against Harvard during Feast Week, and marked a new career high.
“We spread the floor, coaches called looks to where I could get easy drives,” she said, crediting her teammates and the coaching staff for her success.
She was supported by contributing efforts from Collins and Weathers, who scored 15 and 13, and Austin and forward Naomi Jones, who had 10 apiece. Jones also notched six blocks, marking her fourth game with four or more this season. After having 11 turnovers in the first half, Alabama cut the number in half and finished with 16. The team also finished with a notably high 13/21 3-point rate, or 61.9%.
The Crimson Tide will next play on the road against Georgia on Thursday night. Tipoff is set for 5:30 p.m. CT, and the game can be watched on SEC Network.
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