For Alabama head coach Avery Johnson, the goal was simple:
Put together more complete games.
“We just have to do a good job of taking care of the ball, rebounding the ball, and trying to become a better balanced team which we’ve been searching for all year,” he said on Monday’s SEC coaches teleconference. “We’ve put together some good halves, but we haven’t put together as many good complete games as I wanted to.”
Three days later, he can add one complete game to the list.
The Crimson Tide were dominant from start to finish in Thursday’s 75-55 demolition of Mississippi State. Alabama never trailed in the game and led by as many as 30 points in rolling to one of its most impressive SEC performance of the year.
And an improved offense was certainly a big reason for that, thanks in large part to committing a season-low nine turnovers.
“We put a long video together about different situations that happened to us offensively,” Johnson said of lackluster late-season performances against Texas A&M and Tennessee. “We went out and practiced those situations, that if we come up empty two possessions in a row, it’s not time for a bad contested 3.”
“You saw the ball probably move as much as you’ve seen it move in the last three weeks. We put something new in our offense to force the ball to move, and fortunately we set right great screens, had great passes. Really only had two turnovers at halftime. That was huge for us, the way we took care of the ball.”
The main driving force for Alabama’s efficient offense showing was Dazon Ingram.
After going 9-of-10 from the floor with 22 points in a 70-55 win over Ole Miss, Ingram followed it up with a 2-for-6 performance in the regular season finale at Tennessee.
Johnson knew that getting performances from Ingram that were similar to the Ole Miss game was crucial to Alabama’s postseason success.
That’s why he right to him from the outset in the Mississippi State game.
“We ran the first game play of the game for him,” Johnson said. “He passed up a couple of shots in our last game, and I just wanted to figure out what his rationale was for passing up the shots. And it wasn’t good, by the way.”
“So I just told him we trust him and we want him to be aggressive. Even if he’s a little bit overly aggressive at times, that’s okay. I told him that’s something we need him to do because we feel good about how good he can be offensively.”
But Ingram wasn’t the only freshman that Johnson was pleased with.
Despite only scoring only five points, Braxton Key was a big part of the Crimson Tide’s success during the big run that pushed the game out of reach.
“One of his best floor games this year,” Johnson said. “He quarterbacked our team a lot during that stretch when Dazon was rolling, hitting some big guys for rolls to the basket.”
“I wanted to see some improvement and growth, and he did a great job with a lot of his decisions tonight.”
With the Mississippi State victory in the books, Alabama will now turn its attention to a highly-anticipated rematch with South Carolina.
As many basketball fans will remember, the two teams played a four-overtime thriller in Columbia back in early February, which resulted in the Crimson Tide earning a 90-86 victory.
The level of defense and physicality in that game was clear by the 83 free throws taken, with SEC Player of the Year Sindarius Thornwell matching Alabama’s free-throw attempts (33) with 33 of his own. The Gamecocks shot 50 total for the game.
“We take pride in being a physical team all year, but they are a physical team,” Johnson said. “They are a team that you better be ready to play, and we got to play the game physically but smart.”
Despite starting off hot early in the year, South Carolina lost five of its last eight regular season games. Ironically enough, that slide started with the loss to Alabama.
And even with Frank Martin’s team struggling to find its form, Johnson understands the challenge ahead.
“They are an NCAA tournament team,” Johnson said. “So they’re going to want to try to get back on the winning side against us.”
“We’re going to have to be ready to play.”