The No. 19 University of Alabama Crimson Tide jumped to the forefront of the Southeastern Conference West thanks in large part to the outstanding performance of senior center Jermareo Davidson. Davidson scored a career-high 31 points and pulled down eight boards in the Alabama’s 73-70 road victory against LSU. The win was only the second this season by an SEC West team. The other victory was a 63-57 loss Alabama suffered Saturday to the University of Arkansas. With the win, the Crimson Tide are now tied for second place with Arkansas in the SEC West. Auburn University leads the division with a 4-4 record. Davidson, who shot 60 percent from the field and did not commit a turnover, said team chemistry fueled the Tide to the win. “I’m happy we were able to finally get one,” Davidson said. “This whole week we’ve been focusing on teamwork and moving the ball a little bit more, and we pulled it together tonight.” Davidson said his performance against the Tigers could possibly be the best offensive performance of his career. “I didn’t even know how many [points] I had,” he said. “[My scoring] was all part of the teamwork. Don’t look at the clock; just play. Don’t worry about your points or none of that, but I’ll take [the points] as they come.” Alabama coach Mark Gottfried said his focus on better teamwork was a successful formula against the Tigers. “That’s been the emphasis,” Gottfried said. “Play together; trust each other; make sure everybody touches the ball. I thought that [my players] did that on both ends of the floor tonight.” The Crimson Tide snapped a two-game losing streak and improved to 3-4 in SEC play with the win, while the Tigers dropped to 2-5. Alabama won the game despite its starting point guard, junior Ronald Steele, going 0-for-5 from the field and committing three turnovers in the contest. Just like the Tigers, the Crimson Tide made changes to their starting lineup for Wednesday’s contest. Sophomore guard Brandon Hollinger started in place of junior guard Mykal Riley. Hollinger only scored three points and dished out one assist in the game, but he said his main focus before the game was to make a difference on the defensive side of the ball. “I basically just wanted to come out there and spark our team on defense, and that’s what we came out and did,” Hollinger said. LSU is the only nationally ranked opponent the Tide have played this season, and with two home games coming up against the University of South Carolina and Mississippi State University, Hollinger said the win against LSU could fuel the Tide to turn around their shaky start in conference play. “I think it’s going to motivate us to go out and play hard every game,” he said. Davidson said the win will boost the team’s confidence but not enough to keep it from reaching its goals. “We never want to look back on a loss or a win,” Davidson said. “We learn from our losses, but we’re never going to get bigheaded off one win.” Gottfried said that as head coach he cannot look ahead to what might become of the tight western division race. “My 100 percent focus is, ‘Let’s get our team better,'” Gottfried said. “Let’s improve today. Let’s improve tomorrow. Let’s keep improving, and we’ll just see how everything shapes out.”
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