Alabama holds off LSU

BATON ROUGE, La. — Noah Clowney and Rylan Griffen led a balanced scoring attack with 14 points each to carry No. 4 Alabama to a 79-69 victory over LSU on Saturday.

Nimari Burnett and Mark Sears each had 13 points and Brandon Miller had 11 for the Crimson Tide (20-3, 10-0 Southeastern Conference).

The Tigers (12-11, 1-9) have lost 10 straight. Derek Fountain led LSU with a career-high 26 points. Cam Hayes came off the bench and scored 15 points. Tigers leading scorer KJ Williams was held to eight points, nine below his season average.

“It was definitely not one of our better wins,” Alabama coach Nate Oats said. “Sometimes when you're competing for a championship, you have to go on the road and win games that aren't pretty.”

Alabama did not take control of the game until midway through the second half. Holding a twopoint advantage at the 13-minute mark of the second half, the Crimson Tide went on a 19-9 run over the next six minutes.

Alabama's long-range shooting carried it during this run. Both Griffen and Sears made two 3-pointers and Clowney made one 3-pointer in this stretch. Sears' second 3-pointer gave the Crimson Tide a 75-63 lead with 7:19 remaining.

Alabama did not finish strong, going more than six minutes without a point. The Crimson Tide's lead was down to six points at 75-69 entering the final minute. Both Sears and Miller made two free throws in the last 45 seconds.

“Our defense was nowhere close to where we'd like it to be,” Oats said. “Late in the game, we got some stops when we needed to. Clowney really stepped up for us big late. We're at 10-0 (in the SEC) and we've got a tough week ahead of us, a couple of tough weeks ahead of us to be honest with you.”

LSU stayed within striking distance of Alabama throughout the first half. On two occasions in the first 12 minutes, the Crimson Tide went ahead by nine points – the last at 29-20 on a 3-pointer by Miller.

Sparked by a technical foul on Oats, the Tigers reduced their deficit to three points at 33-30 after