Fast paced, electrifying, athletic, versatile, deep, dominant. This is the Alabama we expected to see this season, a team that could very well bring home the program’s first national championship. The Tide enter Saturday’s matchup with No. 10 Texas A&M looking like a juggernaut. They have won seven games in a row by an average margin of 18 points, including an emphatic 107-79 victory over then-No. 12 Oklahoma last week.
And yet, the ceiling is much higher for this group. It is still not shooting nearly as well as it can and the defense, while good in spurts, ranks 312th in Division I in points allowed per game (76.7). “We still haven’t played great,” assistant coach Ryan Pannone tells Hoops HQ. “We’ve only played good. Our upside to continue to play better is high, because we have really good people that work really hard and care for each other and also happen to be super talented basketball players.”
“It’s been going really well,” adds assistant coach Brian Adams. “With that said, I don’t think there’s a level of contentment around it. Both from a player and coaching [perspective], I think we’re all wanting to play at even higher levels.”
The staff is confident this team will reach those levels not only because of its talent, but also its buy-in. The rotation is 10 to 11 deep, which means minutes fluctuate and roles change game to game. That can sometimes stir frustration and friction in a locker room, but that hasn’t been the case in Tuscaloosa. The team has stayed united around one goal: winning. “In today’s state of college basketball, I’m not sure that’s the same on every team,” says Pannone. “Some players just want to get theirs and get their individual notoriety. We’ve got guys that came here because they want to win and have a chance to compete for championships. We’ve got guys that are bought in to trying to do what it takes to win and are willing to sacrifice some things to help us win.”
As Pannone explained before the season, Alabama is aiming to lead the country in scoring, pace, three-point attempts and three-point makes per game. So far, the team ranks first in points (90.9), third in pace, sixth in three-point attempts and 30th in three-point makes. It has managed to maintain a high offensive efficiency despite connecting on just 32 percent of its threes, which ranks 270th in Division I. All-American guard Mark Sears has yet to find a consistent rhythm. His three-point percentage has dropped from 44 percent last season to 35 percent through the first 15 games, though he did go 4 for 6 from behind the arc in Wednesday’s win over South Carolina. Fifth-year guard Latrell Wrightsell Jr., the team’s most reliable outside shooter, suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon in late November and will miss the remainder of the season. After returning from injury in mid-December, South Florida transfer Chris Youngblood, another sharpshooting guard, has knocked down just eight of his first 32 three-point attempts. Youngblood shot over 40 percent from deep in each of the previous three years.
The Tide have compensated for their poor perimeter shooting by finishing well inside, crashing the offensive glass and drawing fouls. They are third in the nation in two-point field goal percentage, 15th in offensive rebounds per game and seventh in free throw attempts per game. Shots have not been falling, but the Tide have been hard to beat because of their improvements in other areas. It is only a matter of time before Sears, Youngblood and additional weapons like senior forward Grant Nelson, sophomore forward Jarin Stevenson and freshman guard Labaron Philon start hitting more of their threes. When that happens, this team will be even more dangerous offensively — and it already has the third highest offensive rating according to KenPom.
Defensively, the primary issue has been consistency. Alabama has had some very impressive defensive performances, such as when it held Houston to 37 percent shooting in a late November win at the Players Era Festival. Earlier this week, the Tide forced South Carolina into 15 turnovers in an 88-68 victory on the road. But at other times, the team has let its guard down against lesser competition and struggled mightily to get stops, just as it did last season. Alabama gave up 90 points to both North Dakota, a 6-11 squad that ranks 183rd in offensive rating, and Rutgers, which scored just 50 points in a loss to Purdue on Thursday. In their own matchup with the Boilermakers, the Tide allowed Matt Painter’s squad to shoot 49 percent from the field and 56 percent from three.
“The defense has gone okay, solid at times,” says Adams, Alabama’s defensive specialist. During his decade coaching in the NBA, Adams helped build six top-five defenses, including the No. 1 defense with the 2008 NBA champion Boston Celtics. “We’ve shown stints of being an elite defensive team. For us, it’s about consistency. And that’s consistency with effort and consistency in executing our schemes.”
In addition to hiring Adams this offseason, Alabama landed 6-foot-11 senior center Clifford Omoruyi via the transfer portal, one of the best rim protectors in college basketball. At Rutgers last season, Omoruyi averaged 2.9 blocks per game and was named to the Big Ten All-Defense team for a second consecutive year. The big man is still getting adjusted to Alabama’s schemes, which are very different from those of Rutgers. He is currently averaging 7.4 points, 6.1 rebounds and 1.1 blocks in 18.3 minutes per game. “It’s about getting him to know the situations in our defense that are best for him to help and protect the rim,” Adams says. “He’s getting better and better by the day at mastering our stuff, like some of the two on two drop principles and then what he’s doing in a screening action situation and all that.”
Alabama will need to play closer to its ceiling on both ends of the floor over the next week, with games against No. 10 Texas A&M, No. 23 Ole Miss and No. 6 Kentucky on its schedule. Texas A&M and Ole Miss are elite defensive teams, while Kentucky ranks just behind the Tide in scoring (88.8 ppg).
According to Pannone and Adams, there is a lot of joy in the Alabama locker room right now, which is translating to the court. Joy, but not contentment. “Anyone who’s seen us, they’ve seen moments of everything,” Pannone says. “Moments where we’re an incredible, physical, driving offensive team, a great three-point shooting team, a dynamic defensive team. We have the capabilities and we’ve shown glimpses of each of [those things]. Now it’s just showing the consistency of all of it. There’s no one within us who feels like we’ve reached our potential.”
