Mississippi State men’s basketball suffered another heavy defeat on Wednesday, conceding 100 points in a loss at Alabama.
The forecast outside was clear, but inside Coleman Coliseum, there was a torrential downpour of three-pointers, with Alabama hitting 16-27 from beyond the arc on 20-34 shooting in the first half.
Alabama led the contest nearly wire-to-wire, hitting a three-pointer 15 seconds into the game and never looking back in the eventual 100-75 victory.
“We tried to switch up our defenses a couple of times, and as soon as we went to some different looks in our zone, even our ball-screen coverage, the next possession they scored on it,” MSU head coach Chris Jans said. “It didn’t give as much confidence to switch up the defense going forward.”
The Crimson Tide came out firing and took a 15-2 lead in the first four minutes of play after hitting five shots from beyond the arc from three different players. Amari Allen, who would lead the Tide with 23 points in the game, hit back-to-back treys to answer MSU’s first bucket from Achor Achor, and was joined in the long-range shooting by London Jemison, Aiden Sherrell, Aden Holloway, Taylor Bowen and Houston Mallette.
“When you’re on the road and playing a team that has the weapons Alabama has, the style that Alabama has, that’s certainly not what you envision,” Jans said of the early onslaught. His appearance on the post-game radio show with Neil Price offered some explanation for the team’s shooting struggles, but there was no answer to the hot shooting from the Tide.
“Trying to win the game, which obviously, we were, our plan of trying to limit possessions and switch up our defenses, etc., got thrown out the window fairly quickly because of the early lead that they had built.”
The Bulldogs scrambled to adjust after the opening minutes, and got some makes of their own from beyond the arc to cut the lead to nine, but a 13-2 run restored the large gap between the teams and the Tide began to pull away.
“It just wasn’t conducive to us trying to get back in the game that way, but it was definitely a buzzsaw,” Jans continued. “I don’t know if I’ve ever been involved in a game where the other team had 16 threes and only four twos at the end of 20 minutes. Amari Allen had a terrific start, I think he had 18 and didn’t miss a field goal the whole first half.”
The Tide haven’t lost to MSU since the 2021-22 season, a 78-76 win for the Bulldogs in Starkville. The Bulldogs haven’t won in Tuscaloosa since the 2015-16 season.
As heavy as the defeat might have felt in-game, it wasn’t as bad as the last trip to Tuscaloosa when the Bulldogs lost 111-73, although Alabama’s shooters hit the same number of treys, 22, in both contests.
“When you’re playing here, they have a little more juice in the building,” Jans said. “They have so many guys on the court who can shoot the three, and more often than not, all five have the green light to shoot the three. Some of them can shoot from very, very deep. It puts your defense in precarious positions, and you’ve got to pick your poison at times.”
The Bulldogs are now 13-15 overall and 5-10 in SEC play with three games remaining in the 2025-26 campaign. The next game will be a home game against Missouri at noon Saturday.
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