Alabama coach Anthony Grant won’t say what prompted the suspensions of Tony Mitchell, JaMychal Green, Trevor Releford and Andrew Steele.
He won’t say why Releford and Steele were reinstated before Alabama’s loss to Florida on Tuesday. And he won’t say why Mitchell, who is from Swainsboro, and Green remain suspended.
Instead, Grant talks about running a program built on character, which is why he sat four of his best players for one game, and Green and Mitchell were held out of another one.
Mitchell was the first to be suspended, also sitting out a win at Auburn on Feb. 7.
“It’s part of life. You have to deal with adversity in everything you do, every single day,” said Grant, who is in his third season. “And obviously, in our business, you deal with 18- to-22-year-olds that are college students, that are going to make decisions. We just have to go from there and the framework of trying to put our team in position to win.”
Grant’s stance could cost the Crimson Tide an NCAA tournament berth.
Alabama was 16-7 (5-4 in the SEC) and had won three consecutive games before the suspensions. It promptly lost at LSU — a game the Tide would have been favored to win — before losing to Florida at home Tuesday.
Hot shot
Justin Hamilton is fitting in just fine at LSU.
The 7-foot, 265-pound center transferred from Iowa State and sat out last season, but is becoming a force for the Tigers.
He had 27 points against Florida, 23 points and 16 rebounds against Mississippi, 20 points against Arkansas and 21 against Alabama.
Hamilton has started all 25 games and leads the Tigers (15-10, 5-6), who have won three of their past four games, in scoring at 13.7 points and rebounding at 7.3.
Have not
Mississippi State had won two games in a row and was ranked 20th until Georgia came to town Saturday.
Georgia upset the Bulldogs, who then lost to LSU in overtime Tuesday. Those defeats severely damaged NCAA tournament chances for Rick Stansbury’s team, who have lost consecutive SEC games for the first time this season.
Mississippi State (19-7, 6-5) had 21 turnovers against LSU and missed nine of their final 11 3-point attempts, going 0-for-6 in the second half.
On a roll
- Rodney Cooper scored a career-high 28 points in Alabama's loss to LSU. He was 10-of-19 from the field and had five steals.
- Marquis Teague was the SEC freshman of the week. He averaged 12.5 points, 9.5 assists and 3.5 rebounds in two games as Kentucky defeated Florida and Vanderbilt. Teague had his first career double-double with 12 points and 10 assists against the Gators.
- Festus Ezeli had 21 points and 10 rebounds in Vanderbilt's victory over LSU, becoming the first player other than John Jenkins or Jeffery Taylor to lead the Commodores in scoring this season. Ezeli then had 13 points and two blocks in a loss to Kentucky.
Local ties
Kenny Hall (Redan) is Tennessee’s third-leading rebounder (4.5 a game) and leads the team in blocks with 25, but coach Cuonzo Martin suspended him indefinitely Wednesday for "conduct detrimental to the team."
Hall is shooting 54 percent from the field this season and 55.2 percent for his career.
The 6-foot-9 junior has 55 career dunks, accounting for 41.7 percent of his baskets.
Around the conference
Arkansas freshman Hunter Mickelson is the top freshman shot blocker in school history, passing Oliver Miller’s total of 60 (set in 1988-89), with four against South Carolina on Feb. 11. Mickelson entered this week with 62 blocks. ... Tennessee was 9-0 in games in which Skylar McBee scored at least 10 points heading into Wednesday’s game against Arkansas. McBee, a junior guard, had a career-high 18 points in a victory over South Carolina last week. ... Mississippi’s Reginald Buckner has 215 career blocked shots, which leads current SEC players. He’s 19th in conference history.
Must-see TV
- Florida at Arkansas, 6 p.m. Saturday (ESPN2)
Expect the Gators, who are 3-5 on the road, to struggle at Bud Walton Arena, where the Razorbacks are 17-0.
Quotable
“It hurts. That’s what it’s like on the road. It’s tough. We can’t blame anybody but ourselves. We can’t blame the refs, we can’t blame the coach. We blew the game.” — Mississippi State’s Dee Bost to the Jackson (Miss.) Clarion-Ledger after LSU’s 69-67 overtime win over the Bulldogs on Tuesday night.
By the numbers
17 Games in which Florida has made at least 10 3-pointers, the most in a season under coach Billy Donovan.
65.1 Field-goal percentage for Kentucky's Anthony Davis, the second-best mark in the nation.
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