Goodman: Alabama has the hot hand, but does the Tide have the resolve?

This is an opinion column.

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Andy Hayes is the president of Alabama’s student section for basketball games.

Before every home game this season, Hayes has attempted a long-distance shot from the crowd. It’s a fun tradition and a good way to make the students feel like they’re a part of the team.

Alabama played Mississippi State on Tuesday night, and, like always, Hayes launched his customary heave during warmups. For the first time this season, his trick shot went down. It was an omen of things to come.

The Crimson Tide took the court and couldn’t miss.

There have been a lot of impressive scoring exhibitions this season for the Crimson Tide, but Alabama’s 111-73 victory against Mississippi State stands out among them all. It was Alabama’s largest points total of the season, and the backcourt duo of Mark Sears and Chris Youngblood accounted for 12 of the team’s 22 3-pointers.

I’m not a superstitious person, but maybe coach Nate Oats should personally make sure Hayes, the president of Crimson Chaos, sinks a bucket from the stands before every single game of the upcoming SEC and NCAA tournaments.

If Alabama can make 20 3-pointers a game, then it’ll never lose again.

The Tide has now won two straight games against ranked opponents since its high-profile losses to No.1 Auburn and No.15 Missouri. The SEC regular-season championship is Auburn’s to lose at this point, but Alabama will win the national championship if it continues to shoot like the Harlem Globetrotters.

And to think that a few games ago I questioned whether Alabama had peaked too soon.

Wrong.

Happily wrong-wrong-wrong.

Oats challenged Sears after Alabama’s loss to Auburn. It was painful to hear, but Oats knew what he was doing. Sears has scored a total of 86 points since being called out.

Will it work, someone asked in a column last week.

Affirmative.

Sears is playing with a renewed energy since the game against Auburn, and the team is following that lead. He scored 35 points last week against Missouri and then 30 against Kentucky over the weekend. It was the first time in his college career to score at least 30 points in two straight games.

This time he went for 21, but Sears’ sharpshooting was infectious. Youngblood, Alabama’s defensive-minded guard, scored 27 points in 26 minutes.

We’ll flip the calendar to March in a couple days, but it looks like Alabama is already in the proper mood for madness. Someone picked Auburn to win the national title before the season started, but the Tide can do it, too.

The reason for picking Auburn was simple. In a season when the SEC has never been better, I knew that the Tigers had the ability to play defense at an elite level.

But maybe I sold Alabama short.

Offense gets the headlines, but holding Mississippi State to 73 points might be a better sign of a healthy team than dropping 111 points in 40 minutes.

Alabama finishes the regular season with games against Tennessee, Florida and Auburn. All four of those teams have the personnel to win the national championship. But who will have the resolve?

We know that Auburn is built for a rugged finish, but Alabama can scrap and claw, too.

Auburn takes on Ole Miss tonight at 6 p.m. If the Tigers get the victory, then they’ll be one win away from clinching the SEC regular-season championship. The banner for winning the SEC this season should be twice as big.

Alabama can still spoil the party, though, and we’ve seen this script before.

Does anyone remember the 2019 regular season? LSU won the title that year, but it was Auburn that got hot at the end. The Tigers went into the SEC tournament on fire and never lost until the Final Four.

This Alabama team is beginning to find that form.

I’m not going to say it’s all thanks to Auburn, but we know what they say in this state about iron sharpening iron.

BE HEARD

Got a question for Joe? Want to get something off your chest? Send Joe an email about what’s on your mind. Let your voice be heard. Ask him anything.

Joseph Goodman is the lead sports columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of the book “We Want Bama: A Season of Hope and the Making of Nick Saban’s Ultimate Team.”

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