National Basketball Association
Kansas St. 71, Alabama 58
When: 10:00 PM ET, Saturday, December 17, 2011
Where: Sprint Center, Kansas City, Missouri
Officials:
# Randy Heimerman, # Gerry Pollard, # Doug Sirmons
Attendance:
16685
By SportsDirect Inc.
Freshman Angel Rodriguez recorded season highs with 13 points and seven assists to help host Kansas State shake off an ice-cold shooting start and defeat No. 21 Alabama 71-58 on Saturday.
Rodriguez didn’t have more than seven points or four assists in any of his first seven games for the Wildcats (7-1), who handled the Crimson Tide’s defensive pressure with poise.
Alabama (8-3), which used a full-court pressing, trapping defense the entire game, had zero steals in the first half and only five for the game.
JaMychal Green had 20 points and nine rebounds for the Crimson Tide, who finished only 2-of-14 from beyond the arc.
Jordan Henriquez, a lanky 7-foot center who was the beneficiary of a number of inside passes from Rodriguez, added a career-high 17 points for Kansas State.
The Wildcats missed 15 of their first 17 shots to fall behind by seven points early before Will Spradling’s floater cut the lead to 13-8 with 9:38 remaining before the half.
Kansas State led 26-24 at the break and came out on fire in the second half.
The Wildcats stretched their lead to 10 points on Rodriguez’s running floater in the lane that made it 47-37 with 10:57 left. That capped a 13-2 run, and then a couple minutes later Thomas Gipson found Spradling for a wide-open 3-pointer from the right wing that extended the lead to 53-41.
With 6:14 remaining, Gipson snatched the rebound off a Rodriguez miss and muscled in a layup to make it 61-45.
Kansas State coach Frank Martin beat one of his best friends - Alabama coach Anthony Grant - for the second time in his career. The coaches’ friendship dates back to high school, where they met as sophomores on the basketball team at Miami Senior High School.
Top Game Performances
| Alabama |
|
Kansas St. |
|
JaMychal Green 20 |
Scoring |
Jordan Henriquez 17 |
|
Trevor Releford 6 |
Assists |
Angel Rodriguez 7 |
|
JaMychal Green 9 |
Rebounds |
Jordan Henriquez 8 |
|
JaMychal Green 6 |
Free Throws Made |
Jamar Samuels 9 |
|
Trevor Releford 3 |
Steals |
Will Spradling 3 |
|
Tony Mitchell 2 |
Blocks |
Thomas Gipson 2 |
Team Stats Summary
| Team |
Points |
FG% |
3PM-3PA |
FTM-FTA |
Assists |
Rebounds |
Blocks |
Steals |
Turnovers |
| Alabama
|
58 |
44.4 |
2-14 |
8-12 |
14 |
28 |
3 |
5 |
18 |
| Kansas St.
|
71 |
44.2 |
3-12 |
22-33 |
16 |
32 |
4 |
8 |
13 |
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