Nate Oats’s team checks a lot of boxes. It has a veteran defensive ace in Herbert Jones, a do-everything forward who leads the team in rebounds, assists, steals and blocks. Another senior, John Petty Jr., is the Tide’s top scorer (13.9 points per game) and shoots 41.9 percent from three-point range — including an 8-for-10 showing from the perimeter this month in a 105-75 rout of LSU.
While sophomore Jaden Shackelford’s scoring is down a little from his debut season, he’s on the floor as much as anyone other than Petty and takes care of the ball. And former Villanova guard Jahvon Quinerly has settled into a sixth-man role after sitting out last season.
All four average between 12 and 14 points, and Alabama has nine players averaging at least 10 minutes (though one of them, 6-foot-10 graduate transfer Jordan Bruner, is out indefinitely with a meniscus injury that has already cost him four games). The Crimson Tide is 15th nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency according to KenPom.com and eighth in adjusted defensive efficiency.
And it minds the three-point line. Alabama gets 40.3 percent of its points from the outside, 14th nationally according to KenPom. In SEC play, that number rises to a league-best 44 percent while opponents manage a conference-worst 21.8 percent of their points on threes.
Deep, balanced and competent at both ends of the floor is a good way to be, and it helps explain why Alabama is so effective after being picked fifth in the SEC and opening the season four spots outside the Associated Press top 25.
That doesn’t completely cover why the Crimson Tide is this good as it piles up a list of first-in-a-long-time accomplishments. Tuesday’s 70-59 defeat of Kentucky completed the program’s first season sweep of the Wildcats since 1988-89. On Jan. 12, Alabama secured its most lopsided victory in Lexington (85-65) since 1974.
It goes well beyond picking on Kentucky when it is down. Alabama has won 10 in a row heading into Saturday’s game at Oklahoma, its longest winning streak since 1996-97. The only other time it opened league play with nine consecutive victories was when it went 14-0 in the SEC in 1955-56.
It’s rare territory for a program that has escaped the first weekend of the NCAA tournament once since 1991 (an Elite Eight run as a No. 8 seed in 2004) and has just two NCAA trips since 2006 (both as a No. 9 seed). Though Alabama hasn’t been great in recent years, it also hasn’t been dreadful: It went 8-10 in the SEC in five of the past six seasons.
The hiring of Oats two years ago helped galvanize the program. Oats was a high school coach less than a decade ago when Bobby Hurley hired him as an assistant at Buffalo. When Hurley left for Arizona State, Oats was promoted and went 96-43 with three NCAA trips and a pair of second-round appearances in four years before moving on to Tuscaloosa and posting a 16-15 mark last season.
This year’s Crimson Tide is decidedly better, and it has a chance to continue rolling in the second half of league play. Alabama is already done with Florida and Tennessee, and just three of its nine remaining SEC opponents have a winning record in conference play. A run at the program’s third-ever No. 2 seed and first since 2002, or even a No. 1 seed for the first time, is a possibility.
If that happens, it won’t be long before Crimson Tide fans raise their annual expectations for basketball, too.
Pressed after pressing pause
A midseason pause isn’t a guarantee that a team will fall into a rut when it returns. Last month, Gonzaga scored 99 points against Iowa in its first outing in 17 days. Villanova upended Seton Hall and Providence in its first two games back from a nearly four-week competition gap. Florida State has won five in a row by an average of 18.6 points since it went 15 days between games.
But it’s reasonable to wonder if some accumulated rust has an effect. Richmond and Saint Louis, which looked so sharp early in the season, lost home games in the past week after lengthy layoffs. More pointedly, Michigan State was clubbed, 67-37, at Rutgers on Thursday, its first game in 20 days.
Then there’s Oregon, which finds itself stuck in a pause almost immediately after returning from one. The Ducks were 9-2 after beating Utah on Jan. 9, then went two weeks without a game before losing at home to Oregon State last weekend. Now, Oregon is back on pause, shelving a three-game trip to Los Angeles (two games against UCLA and another against Southern California).
Getting a team to build cohesiveness is hard enough in a typical year. Figuring out how to do it with a big stoppage or two in the middle could be the difference between emerging as a March threat or missing the NCAA tournament altogether.
Six to watch Saturday
No. 9 Alabama at No. 24 Oklahoma (noon, ESPN2): Austin Reaves and the host Sooners (10-4) have won four in a row, including defeats of Kansas and Texas. Perhaps the Jayhawks aren’t as good as expected, and maybe Texas was shorthanded, but Oklahoma’s surge makes the visit from Alabama as fascinating as any other contest in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge.
Florida at No. 11 West Virginia (2 p.m., ESPN): The Gators (9-4) arrive in Morgantown riding their first three-game winning streak since early December, while the Mountaineers (11-4) are fresh off edging Texas Tech, 88-87, on Monday thanks to Miles McBride’s late bucket. Both look like solid NCAA tournament teams.
No. 15 Kansas at No. 18 Tennessee (6 p.m., ESPN): Both teams ended mini-slides with ugly victories this week — the Volunteers (11-3) with a 56-53 defeat of Mississippi State, the Jayhawks (11-5) by outlasting TCU, 59-51. Both teams are in the top 11 of KenPom’s adjusted defensive efficiency rankings, so a first-to-60-wins scenario is possible. Assuming, of course, either gets there.
No. 8 Virginia at No. 20 Virginia Tech (6 p.m., ACC Network): It’s the first half of the home-and-home between commonwealth rivals, and Virginia (11-2, 7-0 ACC) hasn’t lost since a Dec. 26 stumble against Gonzaga. The Hokies (12-3, 6-2) are in third place in the ACC but have dropped their past four meetings with the Cavaliers.
No. 21 Minnesota at Purdue (7:30 p.m., Big Ten Network): Can Minnesota (11-5, 4-5 Big Ten) win a road game for the first time in five tries this season? And how do the youthful Boilermakers (11-6, 6-4) respond to a Jan. 22 drubbing administered by Michigan? Both teams have had layoffs of at least a week, and neither was particularly sharp on offense in its previous outing.
No. 1 Gonzaga at Pepperdine (8 p.m., ESPN2): The Zags (16-0, 7-0 West Coast) are almost halfway to a perfect run through the WCC, but remember they led Pepperdine (7-7, 3-2) by only four at halftime Jan. 14 before zooming to a 25-point rout. Senior guard Colbey Ross has four 20-point games against Gonzaga, but he scored only nine points in the meeting this month.