by Alabama struggled offensively for much of Wednesday night.
Still, the Crimson Tide surged ahead when it mattered, making a huge run even after a skirmish led to a long delay and a trio of ejections at Coleman Coliseum.
No. 2 Alabama, after trailing by a whopping 17 points in the second half, made a huge run late in the game to beat Auburn 90-85 in overtime in Tuscaloosa. That win officially gave Alabama the SEC regular season title for the second time in three seasons.
Alabama mounts run amid wild fights, lag
Alabama opened the game on the wrong side of a 10–2 run that lasted more than five minutes, struggling to keep up well into the second half – leaving the Crimson Tide in a deep 17-point hole.
However, after slowly chipping away at that mark, it got heated.
Alabama’s Jahvon Quinerly and Auburn’s Wendell Green Jr. came into play under the Auburn bench in what was a rather confusing situation. The altercation erupted after a fight for a rebound went out of bounds right before a scheduled media timeout. After Alabama got the ball, the Crimson Tide bench ran onto the field to celebrate and get ready for that timeout. However, when they noticed that Quinerly and Green were at it on the other side, some Alabama players and an assistant coach started running to join in.
By the time things were settled minutes later, Alabama center Charles Bediako and guard Rylen Griffen, along with an assistant coach, were ejected for leaving the bench and crossing half the court . Under NCAA rules, this is an automatic eject during combat.
Although the delay resulted in a very long delay, it didn’t hinder Alabama’s run for a moment. The Crimson Tide ended a 16-0 run and even took their first lead of the night on a pair of Quinerly free throws with only 95 seconds left in the game. However, Auburn quickly equalized on an Allen Flanigan layup, and the game went into overtime.
Alabama then quickly settled the game, almost immediately taking a five-point lead—the largest in the game—when Noah Clowney threw down a dunk and Mark Sears backed up with a three-pointer.
From there, Alabama held on to take the five-point victory.
Quinerly led Alabama with a season-high 24 points and six assists from the bench. Sears and Clowney finished with 17 points each. Brandon Miller finished with 15 points and seven rebounds after struggling to do much offensively early on. The Crimson Tide shot just 8-of-31 from behind the arc as a team, though they’ve now won four right before Saturday’s regular season finale against No. 24 Texas A&M.
Auburn, on the other hand, has now lost six of its last eight games and is right on the bubble for the NCAA tournament. KD Johnson led the Tigers with 21 points off the bench and FLanigan finished with 17 points and eight rebounds. They will host No. 12 Tennessee on Saturday in their final game of the season, one that would now go a long way toward securing their spot in the tournament.
