Alabama made 7 triples against Saint Mary’s in the second round and just 6 against Robert Morris in the first round. The Tide offense rolled into the Sweet 16 on Thursday, but it wasn’t knocking in deep shots the way we’ve come to expect from Alabama teams.
They had just 39 combined attempts in their first 2 NCAA Tournament games. In the Crimson Tide’s final game at the SEC Tournament, Alabama took 35 3s in 40 minutes. But, as it was made immediately clear against BYU Thursday night, the Tide weren’t in a rut. They were just saving their ammo.
In a 113-88 win over the 6-seed Cougars, Alabama emptied the clip.
The Crimson Tide took an NCAA Tournament-record 51 shots from 3-point land. They made an NCAA Tournament-record 25 of those 3-pointers. Point guard Mark Sears tied an Alabama program record with 10 made 3s all on his own, finishing 1 shy of the individual NCAA Tournament record set by Jeff Fryer in 1990.
Alabama came roaring out of the gates against a BYU defense that, all season, has let opponents take and make 3s at a prodigious clip. But few expected the degree to which Alabama would bomb away from downtown.
Grant Nelson scored the Tide’s first points on a layup. Sears’s first points came on a 2-point jumpshot.
Sixteen of Alabama’s next 17 shot attempts came from beyond the arc. And Alabama made 9 of them. Everyone contributed. Labaron Philon, Aden Hollowy, Chris Youngblood, and Aiden Sherrell all hit first-half triples.
Alabama sprinted into the locker room with a 51-40 lead. It trailed BYU 9-4 early after the Cougars broke off a 9-0 run, but then the floodgates opened and BYU just couldn’t keep pace.
The Cougars trailed by as many as 12 in the first half. They never got closer than 7 in the second half.
Sears finished with 34 points and 8 assists on 11-of-18 shooting. He became the first player in NCAA Tournament history to post at least 8 made 3s and at least 7 assists in a single game. And he became the first SEC player to have 30 and 8 in an NCAA Tournament game since assists became an official stat in the 1980s.
Holloway added 23 points on 6-of-13 shooting — a night that would have been the highlight if not for Sears’ otherworldly shooting display. Youngblood had 19 on 5-of-11 from downtown.
Sears, though, was drawing comparisons to Steph Curry as he was splashing 3s. He was an equal-opportunity bucket distributor, hitting shots off the catch and off the bounce, completely disregarding whoever BYU put in front of him. He tried a fall-away, one-footed 3 from the corner before subbing out of the game for the final time. He tried an alley-oop to Clifford Omoruyi before drilling his 10th make from beyond the arc.
As Alabama punched its ticket to the Elite Eight for the second season in a row, its most dynamic player finally got things rolling. Prior to Thursday, Sears had 9 made triples total in his last 7 games. He hadn’t hit multiple 3s in a game since March 5 and was shooting just 20.5% from deep over his previous 7.
Now, he’s on a heater. And it could thrust Alabama back into the Final Four. The Tide hadn’t made a national semifinal before last season. Now, they’re on the verge of back-to-back appearances. They’ll have to beat either Duke or Arizona to get there.
Alabama buries BYU under avalanche of 3s in Sweet 16 blowout Saturday Down South.
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