For Alabama, the Tide really turned in the second half.
A series of halftime adjustments from Alabama head coach Anthony Grant helped the Crimson Tide tame the Wildcats and win the 2K Sports Classic championship game 77-55 at Madison Square Garden on Friday night.
“I’m proud of the way we were able to maintain our composure,” Grant said. “We got into some foul trouble in the first half. In the second half we were able to develop a little bit of a lead and close this one out strong.”
Alabama was led by the sharpshooting of tournament MVP Trevor Releford, who led all scorers with 25 points, including going a perfect 5-for5 from 3pt range.
“I thought Trevor was terrific today,” Grant said. “He had a great shooting night tonight and was the catalyst for the way the rest of our guys responded.”
While the score suggested that the SEC is as dominant against the Big East as it would be in football, the first half of the game felt more like a heavyweight boxing match than a basketball game.
“It was a lot of stop-and-go and I think we did a good job of getting through that,” Alabama guard Andrew Steele said.
For the majority of the first half Alabama and Villanova matched one another blow-for-blow, with the Crimson Tide and Wildcats exchanging the lead seven times in the first half.
The biggest first half lead for either team came after a trey from Alabama guard Retin Obasohan gave the Crimson Tide an 18-12 advantage.
The Crimson Tide outshot the Wildcats from the field, hitting 57 percent of their shots from the field, including 9-of-15 from three-point distance.
“The thing we always talk about is that we want to make sure we’re taking quality shots,” Grant said. “Our ball movement tonight was really good. I told the guys we were getting good shots for the most part. Continue to do the same things, share the ball and play with confidence.”
Villanova, in comparison, hit just 32 percent of its shots with JayVaughn Pinkston leading the Wildcats with 17 points.
“Just a lot of little things lead to a game like this, but mostly Alabama being very, very good,” Villanova head coach Jay Wright said.
One of those things includes rebounding, which Wright said was a disadvantage for his Wildcats coming into the semi-finals and finals at the Garden.
“I think we played two very good rebounding teams,” Wright said. “I think we’ll be a good rebounding team, maybe not great. We need to get better.”
While Grant was able to get his team to adjust in the locker room at halftime, Wright’s Wildcats proved him wrong.
“I thought at halftime ‘we can’t play any worse.’ We proved me wrong,” Wright said.
asulla-heffinger@nypost.com