Alabama Athletics
John Petty Jr. Nets 34 Points, 12 Rebounds, but Alabama Bounced by Iowa St., 104-89
PARADISE ISLAND, Bahamas – Junior guard John Petty Jr. went off for career highs of 34 points and 12 rebounds, his first career double-double, but Alabama still took a 104-89 loss to Iowa State at the Bad Boy Mowers Battle 4 Atlantis.
The Crimson Tide will face Southern Miss on Friday night at 8:30 p.m. CT (ESPNU) to conclude the three-day tournament.
“We talked about getting our rebounding back on track after our debacle against North Carolina and I thought we did a good job of that," Crimson Tide coach Nate Oats said in a release. "I thought we came out with energy. We got up 14-4 and they had to call a timeout early. We didn’t get a sustained effort on defense for 40 minutes. We just didn’t have it.
"We were able to get back in the game in the second half and cut it to six, but they immediately blew it back open with a 14-2 run in about two and a half minutes. We didn’t do a good job guarding the three-point line. They entered the game ranked about 317th I believe from 4-point percentage in the country and went 15-of-29. We couldn’t finish from two – I think we hit about 39 percent of our two-point attempts and they hit over 50 percent from three. It’s hard to win games when you’re missing layups and they're making threes on the other end.”
Petty’s performance was the second time this season Alabama had a player score more than 30 points, with the first being sophomore guard Kira Lewis Jr. in the season-opener against Penn (30).
He was on 6-of-9 from deep and 11-from-22 from the field. The junior also earned the first double-double for the Crimson Tide this season.
Beetle Bolden was the only other Crimson Tide player to reach double figures, accounting for 10 points off the bench
Alabama finished with 44 rebounds and owned a 44-35 advantage on the boards, marking the fifth time in six games that UA has out-rebounded the competition.
After jumping out to a 10-point lead early in the first half, Alabama found itself down by a 15-point deficit at halftime, 51-36, thanks to a 20-4 run by the Cyclones (4-2) to end the opening stanza.
Alabama (2-4) rallied to cut the lead to only six points, 61-55, but another run by the Cyclones ended any chance of a Crimson Tide comeback.
The teams combined for 193 total points, the most in the nine-year history of the Battle 4 Atlantis.
