At the midway point of the Phil Knight Invitational last weekend for then-No. 18 Alabama basketball, things didn’t go as the team had planned.
After downing No. 12 Michigan State 81-70 on Thanksgiving Day to open the tournament, the Crimson Tide advanced to play then-No. 20 UConn on Friday. The Huskies gave Alabama all it could handle and then some, outmatching the Crimson Tide on the floor, forcing 21 turnovers and taking advantage by turning those turnovers into 23 points.
The fallout by Alabama resulted in an 82-67 loss, the Crimson Tide’s first of the season. The loss wasn’t due to lack of effort — a factor that plagued Alabama all throughout its 2021-22 season — but instead a rough turnover margin a several well-executed runs by UConn.
“We kind of challenged our guys after the UConn game,” Alabama head coach Nate Oats said on Sunday evening. “If you go back and look at that, I think there were two stretches in the first half and the second half that were right about 8-9 minutes total where we got outscored 39-5. The rest for 31-32 minutes, we outscored UConn by 19, but those 8-9 minutes were that disastrous that we got blown out.
“So we told our guys ‘If they start to go on a run, we gotta have a little more grit, determination, fight to us. Like, we can’t get scored on back-to-back, have two empty possessions on offense and just take a bad shot or turn it over. We’ve gotta do a much better job of stopping runs, being tough when stuff’s not going our way.’”
Fortunately for Oats and his Crimson Tide, the players heeded his message heading into Sunday’s third-place game of the PKI: a game against then-No. 1 North Carolina.
By now, you probably know the story. Alabama went toe-to-toe with North Carolina despite forward Noah Clowney suffering a hip contusion early in the game and guard Brandon Miller having a rare poor shooting performance. The Crimson Tide ultimately won 103-101 in four overtimes, due large in part to strong outings from Mark Sears, Charles Bediako and Jahvon Quinerly.
After the game, it was Quinerly that described Alabama’s effort best.
“I think it just shows our resiliency,” Quinerly said. “We didn’t quit. Four overtimes — it’s crazy. I’m still kinda processing the game myself because it was a lot. I’m just proud of the guys, especially our younger guys. Brandon [Miller] struggled a little bit today and he was still locked in on defense and you don’t really see that often from a stud like him.
“It just goes to show that our younger guys, they’re really willing to fight and I’m just proud of the guys. We didn’t quit tonight.”
Quinerly’s statement about the team’s resiliency can be applied to Alabama’s whole season so far, not just its game against the Tar Heels. While only seven games into a brutal non-conference schedule, the Crimson Tide is slowly but surely piecing together a season that has the potential to end in a deep run in March.
That’s a long way off in the future, though. For now, let’s examine what Alabama has been able to do at the midway point of its non-conference schedule.
While the Crimson Tide’s first four games weren’t exactly against high-major opponents, that doesn’t take away from their intended purpose: solid mid-major teams that provided an tough-yet-winnable slate of games while the team sorted out its early-season issues.
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The 75-54 win over Longwood and 95-59 win over Liberty provided solid competition while getting the season off the ground. The gradual escalation with victories over South Alabama and Jacksonville State were even more effective at building momentum.
There was reasonable concern heading into the Michigan State game that Alabama hadn’t been tested enough to overcome the red-hot Spartans. The Crimson Tide certainly hadn’t been tested to that caliber of opponent just yet, but it made its win all the more resounding.
Then there was the loss to UConn, followed by the statement win over North Carolina. With two statement wins heard around the world of college basketball in less than four days, it was only right that the Crimson Tide rocketed up to No. 11 in Monday’s AP poll.
“It’s a statement,” Quinerly said after the win over North Carolina. “It’s definitely a statement win. You know, I said it before and I’m going to keep saying it again: we got a young group and we had every reason to kinda give the game away tonight and our young guys, they fought and we just fought as a team and I think it goes to show our resiliency as a group and I’m just super proud of the guys.
“I think it definitely was a statement win. I think our guys are gonna be more than locked in going into South Dakota State.”
Armed with its 6-1 record and two top-12 wins, Alabama now prepares to face brutal stretch of games in the coming weeks. After taking on South Dakota State, the Crimson Tide will then play at No. 1 Houston before returning home to host Memphis, then play a neutral-site game in Birmingham against No. 14 Gonzaga — a rematch in what is certainly seen as a revenge game in the eyes of the Bulldogs.
The road certainly won’t get any easier for Alabama, but the team has already learned a lot over the course of its first seven games. While the six wins proved to be a more positive form of reinforcement, the loss to UConn is what really gave the Crimson Tide the most in terms of learning opportunities.
“It’s the first loss of the season, so you learn about yourself a little bit,” Oats said after the loss to the Huskies. “We got a lot of stuff we gotta get back at. We gotta take care of the ball better. […] Coaching staff’s gotta do a little better job, players gotta do a little bit better. I didn’t think our effort was bad — I thought we played pretty hard for most of the game.”
Alabama is already off to a solid start, but when a team is able to learn and grow from both its wins and losses, that makes it more dangerous. And with the cohesion that the Crimson Tide is showing alongside effort, grit, stout defense and a shooting offense, there’s a lot to like about this team as it heads into the second half of its non-conference schedule.
See Also:
Depth of Alabama Basketball Shows Up in 4OT Win over No. 1 North Carolina
Alabama Basketball Suffers First Loss of Season, Falls to UConn 82-67
No. 18 Alabama Basketball Makes Statement with 81-70 Win over No. 12 Michigan State
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