STARKVILLE, Miss. — In a season already marred by injuries, Alabama men’s basketball could not afford another injury, with junior forward Herbert Jones playing with a hard cast on his wrist and two players out for the season with torn ACLs.

So when junior guard John Petty Jr. left the game with a right elbow injury, the loss became too much for the depleted Crimson Tide to handle against Mississippi State, as Alabama (15-13, 7-8) lost, 80-73.

Petty played just nine minutes but scored 8 points while shooting 2 of 3 from three. He will have an MRI Wednesday morning.

“[Mississippi State] has long athletes, and Petty, other than [junior forward Alex Reese], is our biggest wing that can shoot,” coach Nate Oats said. “… When they are closing out and running our guys off the 3-point line, Petty can still get those shots up. I thought our guys drove it sometimes when Petty would have shot it.”

Coming into the game, Alabama knew it had its hands full in the paint with Mississippi State starting two forwards that are 6-foot-10 or taller, including Reggie Perry, a potential first-round pick in the upcoming NBA Draft. In its earlier matchup against the Bulldogs on Jan. 8, the Crimson Tide contained both of the forwards by getting both in foul trouble early in the game.

That was not the case on Tuesday night, however.

Perry led Mississippi State by scoring a team-high 21 points and bringing in a team-high 12 rebounds. His counterpart, forward Abdul Ado, scored 8 points while also blocking two shots. Perry ended with four fouls, two of which came late in the second half, while Ado had just two.

As a team, the Bulldogs scored 42 points in the paint and blocked eight shots. On its 2-point attempts, it shot over 60% to Alabama’s 50%.

With less than five minutes to go, Mississippi State resorted to a slow tempo to attempt to hold on to its lead. The tactic resulted in Bulldog guard Tyson Carter scoring eight of his team’s final 11 points, all either coming on a layup or at the free-throw line.

“Our issue was our ball screen coverage there late in the game,” Oats said. “They kept getting to the rim on those [layups], so defensively, we weren’t great late in the game.”

Sophomore guard Kira Lewis Jr. continued his career season by scoring 29 points on 11-of-19 shooting, tallying seven rebounds and four assists.

In the second half, Lewis brought Alabama back to tie the game at 59-59 with 9:34 left by scoring six straight points. He scored 16 points in the second half.

“He’s probably playing the best basketball of his career right now,” Oats said. “We really needed Kira to come through [with Petty out]… He’s been in the gym a lot lately, so you gotta give him a lot of credit. He knows we are making a strong push here to try to do what we can with this season, and he is doing everything in his power to make sure he’s playing his best basketball.”

Alabama shot 27 of 70 (38.6%) from the field, its third-lowest percentage of conference play, and finished 8 of 15 from the free-throw line after missing four of its final five attempts from the charity stripe.

Freshman guard Jaden Shackelford aided Lewis’ second-half effort by scoring 12 of his 17 points in the second half. Overall, he added nine rebounds to his 17 points, including five offensive rebounds.

Alabama will return to Coleman Coliseum on Saturday night to face South Carolina (16-11, 8-6). The Crimson Tide has won its past five home meetings against the Gamecocks.

“I told our guys in the locker room that we have three games ahead of us and that we have to take them one at a time and see what we can do,” Oats said. “We need to be playing our best basketball we can possibly be playing come [the SEC Tournament].”