by CLEVELAND, OH – The Alabama Crimson Tide defeated the St. Mary’s Gaels on the strength of a 80-66 victory. They were led by some well rounded scoring as six of their players reached double digits. Chris Youngblood had 13 while Aden Holloway, Mark Sears and Grant Nelson each had 12. Mouhamed Diobate put in 10 to round out the double-digit scorers for the Alabama Crimson Tide while Mitchell Saxen led Saint Mary’s with 15.
The stats of the game went in favor of Alabama as they scored 27 off the bench while St. Mary’s only 17. Also, the Crimson Tide shot 7 of 17 from deep and outscored the Gaels in the paint 42 – 30.
A Youngblood three ball on the opening Crimson Tide possession got them cooking early. The Crimson Tide held the 9-6 lead, five minutes in. The game remained tight as the Gael’s battled back to tie it at 13-13 with 11:37 left to play in the first. The Tide came out of the 10-minute mark timeout to score the next 8 straight points, highlighted by a Youngblood three ball to make it a 21-13 game, before a Mitchell Saxon bucket for the Gaels finally stopped it.
It continued to go back and forth and every time the Gael’s came within 3, the Tide would get a mini spurt of points to bring out it out again. Most times getting a big shot from either Youngblood or Dioubate. In fact, it was back-to-back buckets by Dioubate that gave the Tide their largest first half lead of 29-21 with 5:43 to play. Shortly after, a Clifford Omoruyi put back made it a 10-point lead for Alabama. The Tide took a 42-29 lead into the break with Youngblood leading all scorers with 13.
Try as the might, the Gaels simply couldn’t cut into the lead at all in the second half as the Alabama Crimson Tide reached the Sweet Sixteen with a dominant 80 – 66 victory.
