Alabama went on the road tonight to always difficult Bud Walton Arena and brought home a 85-81 victory.
The Tide got off to a strong start to grab an 18-8 lead early in the action and looked like they might run this one out early, but the turnover bug and insane outside shooting from 7’2” Zvonimir Ivisic kept the Hogs in it. Alabama took a 40-34 lead into the break despite nine turnovers. Ivisic led all scorers in the half with 15, while the Tide had a more balanced ledger with Mark Sears, Aiden Sherrell, and Chris Youngblood all leading the way with seven.
It seemed that the second half would hinge on whether Alabama cleaned up the turnovers, as they looked like the far better team outside of those mistakes. The Tide did just that out of the locker room and thoroughly dominated most of the second half. With five minutes left the margin was 15 points and Hogs fans started leaving the building.
This Alabama team has shown a propensity to let up too early at times after building a sizeable lead, and unfortunately that tendency reared its ugly head tonight. The Tide went cold late in the action, and Arkansas clawed back almost all the way. Chris Youngblood went to the line up two with 4.5 seconds left but missed the second. Fortunately Ivisic knocked the ball out of bounds and Alabama held on.
Grant Nelson finished with 15 to lead the Tide. Alabama has shot the three ball far better in SEC play than they did early in the season, but it was an off night there at 26.3% on 19 tries, only five makes. The Tide held a narrow 35-32 rebounding advantage and turned it over 14 times to Arkansas’ 11.
This was a huge road win considering the way Arkansas has played of late, but Nate will obviously be highly concerned about squandering such a big lead. Alabama now heads to Austin to play the Longhorns on Tuesday.
Roll Tide.
