With 7:49 on the clock on Saturday evening inside Coleman Coliseum, the crowd was going wild, Johni Broome was limping on his ankle, and Alabama appeared to be seizing momentum after tying the score in college basketball’s game of the year to date.
Tahaad Pettiford shut that down in the blink of an eye, burying a triple to get the Tigers out of a nearly four-minute drought without a made field goal. While Chris Youngblood answered with a 3 of his own for the Crimson Tide, Auburn proceeded to punch right back with seven straight over the ensuing two minutes with Broome, the national player of the year candidate, off the floor.
The game never got closer to five from that point on. In a heavyweight 1 vs. 2 bout, the Tigers delivered the tone-setting and final blows. A week after Auburn lost to Florida and their No. 1 ranking was in question, the Tigers proved the poll voters right on Saturday night.
Four hours after NCAA Tournament selection committee chair and North Carolina athletic director Bubba Cunningham said he had never seen a team dominate so much to get the No. 1 overall seed in the Top 16 early reveal, the Tigers showed yet again why it’s the truth with their 14th quadrant 1 victory. Nobody else in college basketball possesses more than eight of those.
Auburn was relentless on the road, outwilling Alabama 94-85 to improve to 23-2 on the year and take the outright lead on the Crimson Tide in the SEC standings at 11-1.
Bruce Pearl? He made history in the process, becoming the first college basketball coach to notch wins in a 1 vs. 2 game at multiple schools, with this victory joining his win at Memphis in 2008. Yes, he’s not only done it, but completed the feat on the road both times!
What was the formula? It’s what Pearl told me Friday in a 1-on-1:
“Defense and rebounding are going to be the total difference. Try as we might, Florida put 90 on us. Alabama has scored 100 points seven times this year, so yeah, we’ve got to be on our game. We have to make plays on the defensive end.”
While the 695-game winner wouldn’t give away his secrets for that end of the floor in our conversation, it was clear what his priority was early in the game on Saturday:
Take away 3s from the highest-scoring team in America (90.5 PPG).
The Tigers blew up screens, stayed on shooters, did not overhelp and remained constantly committed to keeping the Crimson Tide from finding a rhythm from beyond the arc.
It worked. They held Alabama to just 5-of-26 from 3-point territory and locked down Mark Sears to the tune of 4-of-17 from the field and 2-of-11 from downtown. They may have lost the rebounding and paint battle by the numbers, but it certainly didn’t feel that way. The number that mattered was the Tigers outscoring Alabama by 21 points from the 3-point line, drilling 12 triples to just five for the Tide.
But what it also came down to was this: the Tigers have dudes. They are loaded with shotmakers and playmakers, boasting six players who scored in double-figures in the victory.
Broome took it upon himself to land the opening haymaker, posting 19 points, 14 rebounds and six assists. The X-factor of the game was Denver Jones, who took on the defensive assignment of Sears and kept him under wraps while also scoring 16 points. To me, Jones proved he’s one of the nation’s best defensive guards in the win.
It was Chad Baker-Mazara hitting back-to-back shots to put the Tigers back up five after Alabama tied it at 68. It was Chaney Johnson, a complete matchup nightmare, who scored 14 points. The Tide didn’t have a formula to stop him and he played within himself. It was the big shotmaking of Pettiford, who has been a total game-changer when he’s on and an under-discussed freshman in the country. And don’t forget about Miles Kelly, who posted 15 and was the team’s second-leading rebounder with eight boards.
For Alabama, obviously, it’s a tough pill to swallow when you lose at home on this stage and you know you’ve got to head to Auburn on March 8. But the Crimson Tide will be fine and were projected as the No. 2 overall seed in the selection committee’s reveal on Saturday, owning eight quad 1 wins highlighted by victories over Houston, at Texas A&M, Illinois and more. Nate Oats’ team will learn from this.
But the Tigers put on display why they should be the favorite to cut down the nets this April in San Antonio. This team has zero holes with the nation’s top offense, but the defense came ready and made Alabama work for what it got in its home building.
And they haven’t just showed it once or twice this season. The Tigers did it in the first week of the year in a win over Houston. They went off the mainland and won the Maui Invitational. They’ve run through the Southeastern Conference save a tough performance against a Florida team that is also currently on the 1-line in the selection committee’s eyes. And they went into Tuscaloosa and cut Alabama’s 3-pointers per game in half and made an All-American uncomfortable, something Sears certainly isn’t used to.
“We acted like the No. 1 team in the country today,” Bruce Pearl said after the win.
They sure did, and with the perimeter defense and depth they possessed on Saturday, there’s no reason why they can’t win it all this April.
John Fanta is a national college basketball broadcaster and writer for FOX Sports. He covers the sport in a variety of capacities, from calling games on FS1 to serving as lead host on the BIG EAST Digital Network to providing commentary on The Field of 68 Media Network. Follow him at @John_Fanta.
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