#8 Alabama (20-6, 15-2) has swept Auburn in the regular season for the first time since the 2014-2015 season. It wasn’t always pretty, but in the end the Tide was able to capitalize off of Auburn’s season-high number of turnovers in a 70-58 win over their archrivals.
Auburn (12-14, 6-11) came as close as five points away with 8:05 left in the game. But a 10-0 run with five minutes left allowed Bama to pull away by 15 late. Jaden Shackelford scored 15 second half points, 23 in total, as he easily became Alabama’s leading scorer following a dominating second half. John Petty Jr. finished with 11, Herbert Jones finished with 10. Quinerly came off the bench to score 11.
The Tigers were without Sharife Cooper again due to injury, and short-handed Auburn turned it over a season high 23 times. Alabama capitalized and scored 24 points off of those turnovers.
Alabama, with the win, recorded their 30th 20-win season in program history, and their first since the 2016-2017 season.
Alabama shot 40% from the floor and 28.6% from beyond the arc. In what’s been a slow couple of weeks in the shooting department, the Tide was able to find key shooters to get it done when they needed to and often enough. Bama was outrebounded 46-35 in the win, but it turned out that it didn’t matter. The starters came off the floor with 60 seconds left in the blowout win.
What’s Next?
Alabama will play in Athens, GA in the regular season finale against UGA Saturday at 1:00pm Central.
Layne Gerbig is the lead basketball analyst for Tide Talk Sports. He can be followed on Twitter via @LayneG_TTS.
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