Alabama hosted a shorthanded Arkansas State team tonight for what should have been a relatively easy win. The Tide did in fact score the 88-79 victory, but it was far from easy.

This one looked a bit ugly from the jump. Alabama opened the game not shooting it terribly well, but ran out to a double digit lead because Arkansas State piled up nine fouls in the first four minutes of gameplay. Turns out that we were simply dealing with a whistle happy crew as Alabama would catch up on the fouls by the end of the half.

While it was never pretty, Alabama led by 12 about ten minutes in and appeared to be setting up to cruise to a workmanlike 25-ish point win despite not shooting the ball terribly well.

Unfortunately, the Tide seemed to get that feeling as well and started to play like it. The last five minutes of the first half were utterly pathetic. Alabama ceased to move the ball on offense for whatever reason and the interior defense, which should be a strength of a team with the frontcourt athletes on this roster, went missing. As a result, the Red Wolves closed the half on a 9-1 run to cut the halftime deficit to only three.

You’d hope that Alabama would come out of the locker room with a renewed focus, ready to put the hammer down on what should be an overmatched foe. Unfortunately, while the offense looked some better, the defensive energy was just never there. Arkansas State managed to shoot better than 60% from two point range and accumulate 34 points in the paint. While the bigger Tide did win the rebounding battle, it was much closer than it should have been.

It’s easy to see what happened in this one just from perusing the box score. Alabama shot 19% from three and only managed 10 fast break points. Poor free throw shooting didn’t help, especially since the tight officiating sent them to the line 41 times, but Arkansas State shot free throws just as poorly. This is a team that wants to run and gun, but you have to be able to compete in a rock fight as well.

Fortunately Alabama survived, but they now have plenty to prove after an offseason of hype. Nate Oats is not going to be happy with the fact that such a deep and talented team was outhustled for most of the night. Alabama gets one more tune-up against McNeese State before the schedule turns brutal, so there isn’t much time to get it all sorted out.

Hope for the best.

Roll Tide.