John Petty has only played three official basketball games for the University of Alabama and he has already rewritten at least one important line in the record books.
Petty, a freshman guard from Huntsville, poured in 30 points, making 10 of 13 3-pointers to shatter the school record for 3’s in a game as Alabama rolled over Alabama A&M 104-67 on Friday night.
“This morning we had a great shootaround so I felt like I was going to have a good game but that’s the first time I’d made 10 3-pointers,” Petty said. “Hopefully not the last.
“When the first one fell, that was good because I usually miss my first shot. But when the second and third one fell, I knew it was on.”
Fellow freshman Collin Sexton added 25 points for the Crimson Tide, which shot 63.6 percent from the floor against the undersized Bulldogs. The Crimson Tide’s 104 points was the most by an Alabama team since a 105-74 win over Louisiana-LaFayette in November of 2015.
Crimson Tide head coach Avery Johnson noted a “sub-par defensive effort in the second half” but couldn’t find much to complain about after the offensive explosion by UA.
“The good thing is our team is unselfish,” Johnson said. “The ball moved tonight.”
Johnson also noted that he wasn’t taken by surprise by Petty’s 3-point barrage.
“He had a game in Canada (where Alabama played on an exhibition tour last August) where he made six or seven threes,” Johnson said. “I’m not going to say that I knew he’d make 10 threes in a college game, but we knew when we recruited him that he could shoot the ball.”
The Crimson Tide opened the game with a 10-0 run over the first 3:41 and never had less than a double-digit lead in the final 32 minutes of play as the Bulldogs withered under the offensive onslaught.
In addition to Petty’s 30 points and Sexton’s 25-point night that included a half-court buzzer beater at the end of the first half, the Crimson Tide got 10 points from Dazon Ingram and solid contributions from the other three members of its recruiting class — Alex Reese (nine points, eight rebounds), Herbert Jones (seven points, eight rebounds) and Galin Smith (seven points.) In all, Alabama had 78 points scored by players in their first year of eligibility.
Amari Goulbourne led Alabama A&M (0-3) with 17 points.
Alabama will be back in action on Tuesday night, hosting Texas-Arlington.
Reach Cecil Hurt at cecil@tidesports.com or 205-722-0225.
