You wanted bounce back? How about a Super Ball being dropped from a tall building?
Alabama returned to the Coleman Coliseum and Southeastern Conference game on Tuesday, and as bad as last week’s loss to Oklahoma (93-69) was, it was washed out in record fashion as the Crimson Tide to a 101-44 win over Vanderbilt drove.
It was the largest margin of victory — 57 points — in SEC basketball history in Alabama.
Alabama improved to 19-3 overall and led 9-0 in the Southeastern Conference while the Commodores fell to 10-12 and 3-6.
Alabama resumes SEC play Saturday at LSU tip at 3 p.m. CST (ESPNU). The Tide defeated the Tigers 106-66 on January 14 in Tuscaloosa. Bama returns to the Coleman Coliseum on Wednesday, February 8th to host Florida.
The 100+ is a crowd favorite, but consider the Crimson Tide defense. Vanderbilt was just 3-30, 10 percent on three-point attempts. Overall, the Commodores were 16-64, 25 percent. Meanwhile, Alabama was 36-61 on field goals, 59 percent, and 19-41 on Treys, 46 percent.
Bama had 29 assists with just 12 turnovers. The Tide won the rebound fight 45-33.
In non-point turnovers, Bama led 27-6; points in the color Alabama 32-18; and bank points favored UA 48-20. Vanderbilt had more points in the suit, 32-18.
Brandon Miller was Bama’s top scorer with 22 points at 8-15 from fours, including 6-13 threes. Nimari Burnett, who had missed much of the season through injury, came off the bench at 16 while substitutes Rylan Griffin had 12 and Noah Gurley had 11. Charles Bediako was also in double figures with 10 on 5-5 shooting. Although Noah Clowney did not reach a double-digit value (6 points), he ended his dry spell with 3-point throws 2:4 from behind.
Mark Sears had 8 assists and Jahvon Quinerly had 7. Miller was the top Bama rebounder with 8.
Vanderbilt’s only colon scorer was Paul Lewis with 10.
“They rang the bell after the game in Oklahoma,” Alabama coach Nate Oats said.
“I thought we were workers. Vanderbilt is a strong team, but we were tougher.
“The players sort of coached themselves” as they recovered from the Oklahoma game, he said, noting the extra time they spent shooting alone.
He added that rebounds, defense and shooting are good. He said it was all about the effort and even if the shots hadn’t been fired he would have been satisfied.
Oats said he was happy for the boys.
“Now we have to play street games at LSU.”
Alabama overcame the 50-point lead, 85-34, on a Sears baseline move with 8 minutes to play.
Before the game, Oats had expressed concern that Alabama held a 23-point lead at Vanderbilt earlier this year, allowing the Commodores to make a game out of it before the Flood won 78-66. With a 43-15 (15 to be exact) halftime lead, 28 points, the concern was in the Vandy dressing room. The game was essentially over.
From the time Tide led 13-5, Vanderbilt was more than doubled the rest of the way.
In analyzing how the scores are developing, each of the 14 players who played was positive, led by Miller (Bama went up 40 points in his playing time before being eliminated with five minutes to go), Charles Bediako 37, Nimari Burnett 32 and Rylan Griffin 31.
Vanderbilt had scored the first five points of the game when Bama started slow, but as the tide got hot, it smoked. Alabama put on a 21-point run and the Commodores never got closer than 13 points after that. (The only tie was at 5-5.)
It was a 21-point lead at 31-10 and a 31-point tide advantage (43-12) before the Commdores hit a Trey just before the break.
Bama hit 15-26 field goals (57.7 percent), including 10-19 threes (52.6 percent) while holding Vandy at 5-33 (15.2 percent).
Alabama had just 6 turnovers in the first half, about the same number of airballs by the visitors. Mark Sears had 6 of The Tide’s 13 assists.
Nine out of 10 Tiders who played scored, led by Nimari Burnett with 11 points, 4-4, three of them threes.
TIDE NOTES: The starters for Alabama were as they were, guards Jaden Bradley and Mark Sears, center Charles Bediako, and forwards Noah Clowney and Brandon Miller.
Despite not being in the starting XI, Vandy’s top scorer and rebounder Liam Robbins came into play after five minutes. At Bama’s earlier game against Vanderbiult in Nashville, Robbins missed a game and was ruled out for the season. This was his first appearance since his injury. He played 15 ½ minutes and scored 9 points and had 7 rebounds.
Although almost sold out, there were a number of empty seats. Still, similar to the Nashville game earlier this year, Bama fans were in the majority.
This was Alabama’s second strike against an SEC opponent this year, the state of Mississippi earlier.
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