The look of frustration was painted on John Petty’s face after another fruitless possession in the second half.
Alabama’s finish line was in trouble in what turned into a rock fight at Coleman Coliseum on Tuesday night. The most popular team in the SEC suddenly loses its offense, and with Kentucky in the city, it’s usually a death sentence.
Yet, with just over 2,000 scattered throughout the hollow arena, Alabama found just enough juice to overcome a cold shooting night. A 70-59 victory came through a 10-0 run when the Wildcats were on point for more than four minutes without a basket and kept the Tide dream season rolling.
With this, the Alabama winning streak hit 10 for the first time since 1996 and the first game as a top 10 team in 14 years did not end in disaster.
Kentucky (5-10, 4-4 SEC) led 54-52 with 4:27 left on Davion Mintz’s 3-pointer from the corner, but would only score again at the last minute. Alabama, meanwhile, scraped enough offense after being 3-for-14 off the field to start the second half. It was an astonishing lack of offense for an Alabama team that scored 105 a week earlier in a 30-point victory over LSU.
RELATED: Alabama’s 70-59 win over Kentucky
The 70 points Alabama scored were the least since losing 65-56 to Clemson on Dec. 12.
Alabama went 14-3 and 9-0 in the SEC after winning every game since losing to West Kentucky on December 19th. This is the first time Alabama’s swept Kentucky has been since the 1988-89 season.
21-year-old Jaden Shackelford led a tidal attack that was just 1-for-4 from the perimeter after halftime. Herbert Jones had 13 points, mostly by making 9 of 10 fouls. The Tide supplemented its lack of shooting off the field by going 22-for-26 off the foul line in the second half.
Herbert Jones said Kentucky has a good game plan to stop an Alabama offense of an average of 13, which made 3s a game in the finish line.
“So we just had to figure out ways to attack it,” Jones said. He still delayed a fall against the Mississippi state, but he missed a triple double with 13 points, nine rebounds and eight assistants.
The six 3s were the least since the 3-for-22 series in the Clemson loss, and the 20 attempts went a season low.
Alabama coach Nate Oats said they chased a few too many open jumpers and drove ‘the ball’ to the edge.
“I thought we were seeing a little bit of frustration from some of our guys who usually make shots,” Oats said. Making twenty-two tries two games ago after hitting just six is a game we could have easily lost. ”
The game began with the scent of last week’s 105-75 incident at LSU with Alabama leading 13-5. It made the first five shots – three from the three-point series – with Josh Primo scoring seven of the first ten points. Juwan Gary came off the bench for four quick points on the sidelines as it looks like Alabama wants to score at random again.
With forward Jordan Bruner still out with a knee injury, and James Rojas still missing a week, and Alex Reese, Oats said rookie rookie Gary played many minutes against Kentucky. He finishes with six points, but plays important minutes in the paint with a thin front line that plays Kentucky’s big points.
Things took a turn for the hot start when turnover made the rest of the half muddy. The Tide missed seven tries in a row and was on a 1-for-11 slip when Jahvon Quinerly beat the halftime buzzer to lift the tide at halftime 35-32.
Alabama went four minutes without a basket when Kentucky passed with a slow run of 8-0 to reduce a nine-point lead to 17-16. The first draw came when Davion Mintz was a 3-point circus to beat the shot clock with 1:36 left in the half and make it 30-30.
Kentucky takes its first lead with 12:49, but never pulls an advantage greater than two points. Oats credited the visitors for being sad Tuesday night.
“Obviously they’re struggling and I thought they brought it tonight,” Oats said. ‘They could have easily folded when we jumped on them early and not. They fought back. ”
Alabama steps outside SEC on Saturday with a road game in Oklahoma as part of the SEC / Big 12 Challenge. Oats said he will look at the band on the Sooners at least in the short term.
“I have to clean up a lot of this game because it was disastrous, especially offensive,” Oats said. ‘
Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or to Facebook.