SEC tournament game ends with stunning buzzer-beater
Alabama came into the SEC men’s basketball tournament suffering through a five-game losing streak and watching a good season go down the drain.
While the ninth-seeded Crimson Tide has wins over Auburn, Oklahoma, Florida and Tennessee on its resume, ending the string of defeats and beating some conference rivals would enable Alabama to lock up its first NCAA tournament bid since 2012.
The Tide started slowly against No. 8 seed Texas A&M on Thursday in St. Louis, trailing by seven points early on.
But Alabama rallied to take a 35-28 halftime lead, and it would build that gap to 12 points in the second half.
The Aggies, however, kept fighting back, and they went up 70-69 after a 3-pointer by T.J. Starks with 4.4 seconds remaining.
Things looked bleak for the Crimson Tide.
That’s when Bama star Collin Sexton took over.
The freshman guard drove the length of the court and hit a floater at the buzzer to give his team a 71-70 win.
Bama's tourney hopes were on the verge of disappearing.
Collin Sexton would NOT let it happen. pic.twitter.com/L7S5FzlzD4
— ESPN (@espn) March 8, 2018
“Coach told me just race it up the floor,” Sexton said afterward. “He told me to use my speed and get to the basket.”
He finished with a game-high 27 points, and Alabama coach Avery Johnson couldn’t say enough about the 19-year-old.
“When you’ve got somebody like this on your team, you can beat anybody,” Johnson said.
Collin Sexton’s Coast-to-Coast Buzzer-Beater Lifts Alabama Men’s Basketball Past Texas A&M, 71-70, in Round Two of SEC Tournament‼️
Game Recap ➡️ https://t.co/cgTU2OY4hr#RollTide#BuckleUp pic.twitter.com/4kRvjcFrDn
— Alabama Men’s Basketball (@AlabamaMBB) March 8, 2018
Starks scored 23 points, matching his career high, for Texas A&M, which dropped to 20-12 but can still make a good case for the NCAA tournament.
Alabama (18-14) stays alive to face top seed Auburn (25-6) in a quarterfinal grudge match — all thanks to a freshman who put his team on his shoulders Thursday.
“We lost five straight, so we needed that,” Sexton said. “We needed this win.”
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