Saint Mary’s doesn’t let teams score 80 points. Before the Gaels faced Alabama basketball in the second round of the NCAA Tournament on Sunday, the last time an opposing squad hit 80 came on March 8, 2022, when it fell 82-69 in the WCC tournament title game to Gonzaga.

It took until Jarin Stevenson made a layup with 35 seconds remaining, but the Crimson Tide got there. UA won the game 80-66 to move on to the Sweet 16.

“When we play with pace and the ball moves with energy, there’s not really many defenses in the country that can really guard us, because we’ve got so many options,” Alabama guard Chris Youngblood said in the postgame locker room. “Got one of the best offensive coordinators, coach (Ryan) Pannone, in the country. So we have a counter, we have an answer for everything.”

Sunday’s game was the ultimate clash of styles. Alabama likes to run and score lots of points, while the Gaels prefer to slow each game down, collect offensive rebounds and grind teams to death.

UA head coach Nate Oats said before the game that he didn’t think the Crimson Tide would be able to speed Saint Mary’s up on offense. Instead, he wanted his team getting defensive rebounds to end possessions early and create chances in transition.

That’s exactly what UA did in the win.

“We looked at possessions,” Oats said afterward. “I think the last time they had a 70 — I think they’ve only had two 70-possession games all year, and one was against a non-Division I, and one was against Akron the third game of the year in November. So we were about to get it to 70, not 80 like we like to get, but against a team like that, you’re kind of winning the tempo war if you can get it to 70. The first team over 80 on them in over 100-plus games.”

The offense was a team effort. Youngblood led Alabama in scoring with 13, but he had Mark Sears, Aden Holloway and Grant Nelson just behind him with 12 each.

Cliff Omoruyi and Mo Dioubate also had 10 points for the Crimson Tide.

“It’s tough to guard us when you’ve got six guys capable of getting double digits, and that’s not even counting multiple guys that have scored it well for us that didn’t get to double digits,” Oats said. “I thought we had great leadership tonight, showed a lot of toughness. We said the tougher team is going to win this one, and that’s one of the tougher teams in the country. Our guys really stepped up and met the challenge there tonight.”

The Gaels beat Vanderbilt to open the NCAA Tournament, and that game showed the cracks that would hurt them against Alabama. The Commodores were able to run early and take a lead, but ran out of gas late.

The Crimson Tide has depth that Vanderbilt didn’t. That’s why Oats said he felt the 2024-25 Alabama squad was in a better position to make the Final Four than the 2023-24 team that actually did.

“Whether it’s injuries, foul trouble, just depth to wear teams out, guys just not playing well and you need somebody else to step up, I definitely think we’ve got it,” Oats said. “No doubt, they stepped up big from last year’s run, even today.”

Alabama will face BYU in the Sweet 16 on Thursday in New Jersey.