While it won by an easy margin, the Alabama women’s basketball team did not play the way coach Kristy Curry wanted it to in its 82-53 win against Mississippi College on Thursday night.
There were multiple times where Curry’s frustration boiled over during the game. Once the media timeout was called in the third quarter, the Alabama players on the floor started to walk toward the bench. Curry, who likes her players to run every time they set foot on the floor, yelled from the sideline “Run. We don’t walk.”
“I think it was a little bit disappointing, just our approach from our first group tonight,” Curry said. “Maybe that’s something we need to look as far as our starting lineup… We were not very energetic. We’ve got to learn how to go to class from eight till noon then we have shootaround and pregame.”
Another frustration for Curry was the team’s dismal shooting from the free throw line. The Crimson Tide made just 13 of its 27 shots from the charity strike finishing with an average of 48 percent. It shot just four of 12 in the first half.
Curry wants her team to shoot about 70 percent a game.
Alabama led by eight coming out of the half and the lead hovered around there for most of the third quarter, jumping up as high as 11 heading to the 1:27 mark of the period. From that point on, the Crimson Tide dominated, outscoring the Choctaws 25-12 in the final period.
Freshman guard De’Sha Benjamin led all scorers with 15 points. She made six of her eight shots, three of which were from three, and pulled down four rebounds in her 18 minutes off the bench.
“My teammates found me when I was open,” Benjamin said. “When I took my shots, I was confident of them going in.”
She was one of three Alabama players in double digit scoring. Lewis and Jasmine Walker were the other two, scoring 13 and 11 respectively. Alabama’s starters shot 58.6 percent from the floor.
Alabama did outscore Mississippi College 44-20 in the paint and 38-14 off the bench.
The Crimson Tide starts its season on Nov. 7 as it hosts Southern Louisiana.
