Alabama Overcomes Slow Start, Short Bench for Needed Road Win at Mississippi State

Labaron Philon Jr. and Aiden Sherrell had career-best performances for the Crimson Tide on a night with just eight scholarship players availble to play.

Aiden Sherrell shoots over a Mississippi State defender- Jan. 13, 2026 | UA Athletics

STARKVILLE, Miss.–– Sometimes the final score doesn't tell the whole picture.

Alabama was on its way to a third straight SEC loss after a shaky start in Starkville on Tuesday night. With only eight scholarship players available, it was going to take great effort from those eight players (Labaron Philon Jr., Aiden Sherrell, Houston Mallette, London Jemison, Noah Williamson, Jalil Bethea, Aden Holloway and Amari Allen) to produce a comeback.

Fortunately for Nate Oats, the players did step up. No. 18 Alabama erased an early 14-point deficit and turned it into a dominant 97-82 road win over Mississippi State. By the final minute, Oats was able to put his walk-ons in.

"For us to come in here and figure out a way to get a road win with the number of bodies we had tonight just shows a lot about who our guys are, the character of these guys, how hard they play," Oats said after the game. "I couldn't be more proud of the group."

It was already known before the game that Alabama (12-5, 2-2 SEC) would be without Collins Onyejiaka, Davion Hannah, Latrell Wrightsell Jr. and likely Taylor Bol Bowen. Forward Keitenn Bristow was added to the final availability report as unavailable, leaving Alabama's frontcourt extremely thin against Mississippi State (10-7, 2-2 SEC.)

The Crimson Tide found itself trailing 29-15 with less than eight minutes to go in the first half. Nothing was going right for Alabama offensively, and the Bulldogs were draining 3-pointers. Both trends were reversed as Alabama went on a 21-5 run to close out the half and came out strong out of the break as well.

"It was a wakeup call really," Sherrell said of the early deficit. " We had been emphasizing defense and just had to go out there and execute the game plan."

Philon came alive for the Tide during that run at the end of the first half. He was responsible for nine of the 21 points and finished with 32 points, a new career high. It was also a career night for Tide forward Sherrell, who is coming off an injury. Sherrell had 22 points, five rebounds and two blocks.

True freshman Amari Allen had his fourth double-double of the season with 13 points and 13 rebounds. Alabama scored 82 points over the final 28 minutes of the game.

The defense also stepped up. Early on, Mississippi State held a pretty sizable lead in the rebounding margin (20-9.) Alabama ended up winning the rebounding battle. The Bulldogs made four of their first seven 3-point attempts and only made five more the remainder of the game.

"We out-rebounded them by 15 after the poor start on the glass, so pretty good," Oats said. "Really happy with the guys on the glass after the tough start out of the gate."

With another road game coming on Saturday at Oklahoma, Alabama could not afford to drop a third straight SEC game this early in conference play if it wants to keep its hopes alive for a regular season title or double-bye in the SEC tournament.