Alabama Women's Basketball Holds On For 77-70 Win at Florida
Behind another big night from the senior trio of Jasmine Walker, Jordan Lewis and Ariyah Copeland, Alabama women's basketball held on for a 77-70 win at Florida Thursday night.
This was Alabama's second straight road win as the team moves to 14-6 overall and back above .500 in conference play at 7-6 after previously losing four in a row.
"It was a gutsy road win, and I’m really proud because these are hard to come by in this league," Alabama coach Kristy Curry said.
The Crimson Tide led 56-39 with 3:08 third quarter, but the Gators cut the deficit to six with 3:07 left in the fourth.
Florida went on a 10-0 run to cut the lead to 7 in the third, but two free throws from Megan Abrams ended the run, and a Walker three-pointer at the buzzer gave Alabama an 11 point lead going into the final quarter.
The three seniors steadied the offense down the stretch in the fourth quarter along with clutch 84 percent free throw shooting as a team to close out the game.
"In every huddle down in the fourth, you could just see it in their eyes," Curry said. "They weren’t going to lose. At that point, it was more of your will than your skill."
Coming off the career game at Auburn, Walker once again led the team in scoring and finished with 22 points. Lewis had 20 points, and Copeland added 16 points.
Kiara Smith gave a phenomenal effort to keep the Gators in the game after Alabama took the big second half lead. She led all scorers in the game and finished with 27 points for Florida.
Alabama started out hot from three, going 5-6 in the first quarter, but the shooting simmered down throughout the rest of the game as Alabama finished the night 9-27 from three.
On a night where Alabama got out rebounded 43-29, Abrams was constant on the defensive boards and tied her season high with nine rebounds.
"We were very uncharacteristic on the boards today and that's something we know heading into Mississippi State we’ll clean up, but we just kept yelling ‘Meg, you’ve got to rebound, you’ve got to rebound,’ and boy she was persistent on the boards and came up with some really big ones," Curry said.
Up next for the Crimson Tide is senior day on Sunday against Mississippi State at 2:00. Alabama previously beat the Bulldogs on the road 86-78 back on Jan. 14.
