No. 25 Alabama Downs LSU Basketball, 90-83

BATON ROUGE – The LSU men’s basketball had five players in double figures and stayed with No. 25 Alabama for much of the game before falling 90-83 Saturday evening at the Maravich Center.

The Tigers, down three at intermission, fell behind by as much as 16 with 7:11 to play, but rallied to cut the margin to just six twice in the final 2:38 of the game.

While Alabama, known for its three-point shooting, made 10, the Tigers countered with nine of their own. But the big difference came at the free throw line where Alabama made 30-of-37 attempts, while LSU made 16-of-22.

Marquel Sutton had his sixth straight double figure game for LSU, his second straight of 21 points, hitting 7-of-16 attempts, a three and 6-of-8 at the free throw line. Freshman point guard Jalen Reece continued his impressive play of late, scoring 14 points with five assists. PJ Carter his three treys in scoring 13 points, while Rashad King hit a couple of threes for 12 points.

Pablo Tamba had a 10-point, 12-rebound double double in 26 minutes that included five offensive rebounds and 5-of-6 from the floor.

Alabama also had five in double figures with Aden Holloway scoring 17. Amari Allen had 16, Latrell Wrightsell Jr., posted 14 and London Jemison and Aiden Sherrell scored 12 each. Sherrell also had a double us with 10 rebounds.

The Tigers and Alabama went back and forth in a first half that featured seven lead changes and six ties. Alabama led by as much as nine (41-32) with 1:29 to go in the half, but the Tigers finished on an 8-2 run to cut the lead for the Crimson Tide to 43-40 at intermission.

Sherrell hit a two-pointer and a three-point field goal to open the second half to push the lead to eight and began a steady trip to the free throw line, making 16-of-23 in the half after making all 14 attempts in the first half.

LSU used a 10-3 run to cut the margin to nine, 77-68, with 4:40 left and down 11 with 2:50 left, Tamba hit a layup and Carter a three-pointer to cut the Tide lead to 81-75 at the 2:38 mark. But the Tigers could not get a crucial stop as Allen scored inside to move the lead back to eight.

LSU would use two Sutton buckets in a three-second period to cut the margin back to six (89-83) with 14 seconds left and the Tide added a free throw for the final margin.

For the game, LSU would shoot 42 percent (29-of-69) and 9-of-20 from distance. LSU was 16-of-22 from the free throw line (72.7 percent). Alabama finished 25-of-58 (43.1 percent) and 10-of-30 from distance (33.3 percent) along with the massive free throw total.

LSU had 36 points in the paint to 26 for Alabama.

The Tigers will travel to Oxford for a Wednesday 8 p.m. game against Ole Miss. The game will be televised by the SEC Network and broadcast on the LSU Sports Radio Network.
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LSU vs. Alabama
February 21, 2026

LSU Head Coach Matt McMahon

Opening Statement…

“Credit to Alabama – they came off an emotional game versus Arkansas (117-115 2OT win on Wednesday) and were ready to go. I thought our guys played well in spurts. We were concerned with their scoring obviously – they had won five in a row and averaged 99 points a game in that stretch, so we wanted to try our best to control the tempo of the game. We know the importance of the three-point line when you’re playing against an Alabama squad, but I thought the difference of the game was the free throw line – they got there 37 times and shot them very well. I thought we did a great job on the glass in the first half, but in the second half they got some key offensive rebounds when the margin was six-to-eight points. I thought the third thing that made it difficult on us tonight was when they were running us off the three-point line, I thought we took a lot of tough two pointers in that 12–17-foot range and kind of took the bait on some of those difficult shots. I know there was a point in the game where we were shooting over 50% from three and around 32% from two, and that’s not a good formula for us.”

On Alabama’s offense tonight…

“I think their spacing stood out. There’s a common misconception about Alabama that everyone thinks they just come down and jack a bunch of three-pointers, but it’s their ability to put pressure on the rim and paint with their one-on-one dribble-drive game. They try to get you on rotations, and they really move the basketball. They don’t take the bait on a tough two – they just pivot and spray it back out and keep putting pressure on you for all 40 minutes. I did think we got a couple of tough calls on illegal screens that looked like great plays to me, but I think it was the one-on-one dribble-drives that we unfortunately bailed them out on some of those when we got beat off the bounce.”

On adjusting when faced with foul trouble tonight…

“It’s been the last three games that we’ve played really well in spurts, but we’ve been battling foul trouble at the five position and that happened again tonight. It enabled us to go smaller and switch a lot of their actions to try and do a better job to contain the dribble, but I did think we had some contributions from guys off the bench. I thought Rashad King and PJ Carter were efficient offensively and combined to go 5-8 from three and had positive plus-minus during the game. I thought Marquel (Sutton) and Pablo (Tamba), when we did go to the smaller lineup and they were at the four and five spots, both got five offensive rebounds. Pablo got a double-double with 10 points and 12 rebounds and then Marquel scored 21 points, so I thought it gave us a little bit more speed and ability to switch on the perimeter when we went with the smaller group.”

Fifth-Year Senior Marquel Sutton
On the difficulty in trying to keep Alabama off the free throw line…
“I feel like they got their spots, they were attacking matchups that they like, they did a very good job at that, and the officials just called the foul. We could stop it, but we’ve got to move our feet, keep our chest up. I feel like we could have done a lot more to stop it but we didn’t.”

On closing the gap in the deficit multiple times…
“Just keeping our poise, we know we can come back. I feel like we’ve been down a lot before and we made strides to come back like that before, so we just all believed in each other, we got stops when we needed to, and we scored when we needed to in order to get that comeback.”

Freshman Guard Jalen Reece
On the mentality going into these last four games…
“We’ve just got to keep playing hard, keep playing for each other. At the end of the day we’re a family so if we just keep staying together everything will work out.”

On the third straight game in double figure scoring…
“I just think it’s just playing more freely. The coaches have great trust in me to do what I have to do to help the team win, so I’ve just got to keep playing hard for everybody to just keep showing why I’m here. This is what I’m supposed to do and what I’m able to do.”
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LSU vs. Alabama. Men’s Basketball
February 21, 2026

Alabama Head Coach Nate Oats

Opening Statement

“First off, I would like to say, I have a lot of respect for LSU players and staff. We’ve watched those guys lose some tight games. The Kentucky one was awfully tough. They played Arkansas really tough, and they just lost a one-possession game at Texas, which we lost to at home, so for them to play as hard as they are currently playing and keep fighting when they were down 16 with seven minutes to go and fought all the way back and cut it to six late in the game. You have to give them a lot of credit because they could have easily not done what they did tonight based on some of the tough close games they lost, so a big credit to them.”

“We were even with them on the glass, and they outrebounded us on the offensive glass with three guys over five, so moving forward, we’ve got to do a much better job on the defensive glass. We made some pretty tough plays, too. I thought that was the best game Aden Holloway has played on the defensive end all year. We started out with the matchup on Max MacKinnon, who ended up playing 30 minutes with 16 shots and led their team in field goal attempts. I believe it’s the second game in SEC play where he didn’t have double figures, so a pretty impressive job by us.

“It wasn’t just Holloway; Latrell Wrightsell came in and did a great job as well, but I really thought Aden’s attention to defense really showed up. He ended up with two steals, and his defensive leverage tied with the highest on the team with Aiden Sherrell, so I liked where his head was at. We didn’t shoot it particularly well. Holloway and Wrightsell shot two for 11 from three, and those guys had been shooting it really well. We have to get our legs back up under us. The double overtime game on Wednesday may have had something to do with that, but we will be off tomorrow and hopefully get our legs back under us by Wednesday against Mississippi State.

“Hopefully, we can keep the defensive effort from the guards and get a lot better on the glass, and keep Sherrell out of foul trouble. His fouling out and only being able to play 20 minutes tonight really hurt us. In those minutes, he had 4 blocks and a double-double. He was really doing some damage in there, so for him to foul out, it really hurt us. We’ve got to have some guys step up when he’s out of the game because he may be in foul trouble in March. In all, a good road win. We have four games left, and we need to stay locked in. We have Mississippi State next, and they just beat Auburn in the middle of the week with Hubbard scoring 46; so, we have to be ready to play them Wednesday.”