It wasn’t an impressive one, but not a discouraging one either. Appalachian State may not be a big name, but these small schools are always dangerous in basketball in ways that you just don’t see in football. Like most of the smaller schools, App State excels at shooting 3 pointers, and Alabama survived a 60% outing from the Mountaineers in that regard and still won by a solid 8 points.
For most of the first half, Alabama had no offensive identity or rhythm. Freshman point guard Kira Lewis had some moments and hit two 3-pointers to open the game, plus another 7 points to make his 1st half total of 13 points— nearly half of the Tide’s offensive output.