Alabama Advances to NIT Classic Semifinals with 75-58 Win Over Georgia State

The Alabama men's basketball team advanced to the semifinals of the NIT Tipoff Classic with a 75-58 win over Georgia State Tuesday night in Coleman Coliseum. Senior guard Trevor Releford led the team with 19 points and had six rebounds.

The Tide will face No. 6 Duke in the semifinals on Wednesday, Nov. 27 with tipoff slated for 8:30 p.m. CT on ESPN2.

“I thought our guys did an outstanding job of taking away the things we needed to take away defensively,” UA head coach Anthony Grant said. “Georgia State has a very explosive offense and we did a really good job of guarding the three-point line.”

Up by eight with 18:33 remaining in the game, Alabama went on a 21-6 run to go up 61-38 with just under 10 minutes to take control of the game.

With three steals tonight, senior Trevor Releford has 201 steals for his career. The school record holder in total steals, he became the first player at Alabama to record at least 1,000 points, 300 assists and 200 steals for a career.

For the fourth consecutive game, sophomore guard Retin Obasohan recorded or matched a career-best scoring performance. Obasohan opened the season tying his career high of 14 points against Oklahoma on Nov. 8. He followed that with a career-high 15 points vs. Texas Tech on Nov. 14. Against Stillman on Monday, Obasohan again finished with 15 points. Against Georgia State, the Antwerp, Belgium native had a career-high 18 points. Obasohan also tallied a career-high three blocks vs. the Panthers. He also led the team with four steals.

Junior guard Levi Randolph had 10 points, while freshman forward Shannon Hale had eight points and a team-high seven rebounds, both of which are career highs.

The Tide finished the contest with 75 points, which marked the fourth consecutive game UA has scored at least 70 points. The last time an Alabama team scored 70 or more points in its first four games of the year came at the start of the 2007-08 season.