TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Before the season began, Alabama men’s basketball coach Avery Johnson emphasized how important it was for his team to find Jimmie Taylor. They found him for the first time on Wednesday night.
Taylor scored 14 points and grabbed 11 rebounds in Alabama’s 72-60 victory against Winthrop.
Taylor’s double-double is the first for an Alabama player since Johnson took over in the offseason.
Taylor wasn’t the only Alabama player who stood out. Point guard Justin Coleman had 18 points and five assists, Retin Obasohan added 12 points, and Arthur Edwards had 11 for Alabama (7-2), which outshot Winthrop 52 percent to 38 percent.
Leading by five at halftime, Alabama surged on a 19-4 run in which Taylor scored six points and Obasohan eight. Coleman scored 16 points in the second half, and his 3-pointer at the 10-minute, 6-second mark put the Crimson Tide up by 23 for its largest lead of the game.
“We kind of got our offense in gear there in the second half,” Johnson said. “It was like paint drying in the first half. The tempo was too slow.”
Alabama outrebounded the Eagles 40-30 and outscored them 42-22 in the paint.
Keon Johnson scored 25 points and Xavier Cooks added 13 for the Eagles (6-3).
Alabama limited Johnson to eight points in the second half, compared with the 17 he scored in the first half. Avery Johnson credits Obasohan with shutting down Keon Johnson in the second half.
“We talked about how we wanted to minimize his production in the second half,” Avery Johnson said. “Fortunately, we switched Retin Obasohan, reigning SEC Player of the Week, on him and Retin did a phenomenal job defensively.”
Once the Eagles fell behind in the second half their problems were compounded by shooting 4-18 beyond the arc while Alabama went 3-7 from the same distance.
Alabama likely could have won by a larger margin, but the Crimson Tide began sitting starters and other key contributors after Taylor took a hard fall with a little more than five minutes to play.
It was Alabama’s first home game since losing starting point guard Dazon Ingram to a season-ending injury. The team also played without second-leading scorer Shannon Hale, who sat out with an unspecified medical condition that will likely keep him out of at least one more game.
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