The Crimson Tide went one-up with a loss in the quarterfinal round on Friday night in Nashville.
NASHVILLE, Tennessee – Alabama basketball came to a halt in Music City quickly for the first time in Nate Oats’ tenure, as the 3-seeded Crimson Tide fell to 6-seeded Florida 102-88 in the quarterfinals on Friday night.
It was Alabama’s fourth loss in six games, as the team has slowed down after an incredibly strong performance over the first 3.5 months of the season.
Normally, I have three or more takeaways from each game, but after this game, I’m really only left with two main thoughts:
1. Again, the defense was determined by the offense.
If Nate Oats had a list of his most overused phrases heading into the 2023-24 season, this one would definitely top the list: Don’t let your offensive success overshadow your defensive effort.
They’ve said it over and over again, and still, it remains the biggest issue for the Alabama basketball team.
The Crimson Tide got off to an excellent start to the game from an energy and defensive effort standpoint. Alabama jumped out to an 8–0 lead, forcing Florida to call a quick timeout, and everything about the effort stepped up to a level not typically seen from this team on defense.
But after a few more minutes, Alabama’s offense slowed down a bit. 3-pointers didn’t fall at the rate they usually do, and before you knew it, the Crimson Tide were in a scoring drought.
Once severe drought began, frustrations arose. When players on this team can’t see their shots go in, it demotivates them, and it hinders their ability to get deep and shut down the defense.
The results continued to escalate, and resulted in Florida going on a nearly unimaginable 21–2 run, leading the Gators by 15. And at that point, it was over.
“Adverse situations happen,” Oats said. “Then you miss a shot, the ref misses a call, your teammate misses you being open. I mean, you can see it. The defense doesn’t have intensity. Poor defensive possession, They score. We don’t come back moving the ball with speed on offense. Makes the next offensive possession difficult. Just a snowball effect.”
Oats perfectly described what he sees as a coach when teams falter defensively. Perhaps more worrying were the reactions from his players when asked about the defense.
Alabama guard Aaron Estrada said, “I don’t know what it is. We started very well today. We really haven’t started well in our last few games.” “I think we started very well today. Then they scored a little bit. We turned from there every time. […] I don’t really know what happened, but I feel like as soon as we Was playing throughout the game that ended.”
Oates sees the issues, and can describe their root perfectly, but it seems the players are capable of implementing solutions. This is not a simple solution either. It’s a deeper issue of mental toughness that this team has repeatedly failed to reach a high enough level.
It made up for nearly all of this year’s losses, and now Alabama has one last chance to fix things before the season ends.
2. All hope is not lost for the NCAA Tournament.
Alabama’s run in the SEC Tournament is now over, with only the NCAA Tournament remaining. This means the next time Alabama loses a game, the 2024 season will be over.
If you don’t realize the urgency with this, I don’t know what will happen to you.
“We have to try to get the perspective back, just make a change,” Oates said. “We want to win every game but, we have to focus on defending every possession. We are going to try to repeat that for next week. Whether we play on Thursday or Friday next week, we have to be right at the gate. Ready to go out.”
The beautiful thing about the NCAA Tournament is that it’s a fresh start for everybody. A clean slate. The record of all 68 teams in the field is 0-0.
Alabama hasn’t ended the season on a strong note heading into the Big Dance, but it’s happened before and teams have made runs. In 2017, South Carolina lost its first game of the SEC Tournament and advanced to the Final Four. This is not a death sentence, although it naturally does not inspire much confidence.
The good news is that Alabama has positioned itself well. It is likely to be a 4-seed, which means it will face a 13-seed mid-major in the first round. A first round win, and that gives a team a chance to play offense with this talented player on a 1-day scout, which will be difficult for any team in the country.
Depending on the draw, there is still a path for Alabama to reach the second weekend of the tournament, but to do so, it will have to produce a more consistent effort defensively.
Stop me if you’ve heard this before.
Oats said, “We have a week to decide if they can guard 40 minutes. If we can, we can make a deep run in the NCAA tournament.” “In my opinion, it’s not because of a lack of quality defensive personnel. Obviously we’re missing some guys here and there. We have guys who are capable of being better than even strong defenders. We need that kind of work.” What’s not to do is have a top three defense in the country when we have a top three offense in the country.” Click Here
Will there be a change in this team’s defensive mentality, or do we already know what this team is? While the latter may be a possibility, there is still a chance for this team to have a successful time in the NCAA Tournament. Click here