re: Alabama Basketball Megathread | 26-7 (16-2)

Facts SOG

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Yep. It's also made me look closer at other team's shot selection. I've lost count on the times in the tournament, where I've seen them pass a decent 3 look, just to dribble twice and shoot a contested 15 footer. Only benefit I see to mid range shots now, is as a slump buster.

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I think there is some value in anything on the move to the goal where you can use the backboard or get a solid look on a floater or jump stop 6-7 footer when the defense is prepping for a charge. I don't know Oats feelings on those, but if you have a player who has good, soft touch on those and/or a good feel from using the backboard those seem like very high % looks. JQ does that well, Javonte Smart from LSU is probably as good as anybody at them.

But yea, the step back 18 footer by a guy who shoots 40% from the field makes my head explode - even when it's some SF from Texas Tech taking it

Petty just NEEDED to continue taking SHOTS period.

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fast breaks to the basket seem like a natural progression of the offense.

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Absolutely - and that's a big part of Oats offense. As you know as a basketball guy, the offense wouldn't be very effective if we just passed it around the perimeter for 7 seconds then jacked up a 3 (which is what a lot of media people seem to think we do, for some odd reason).

A big part of the offense is having guys who can slash, beat their man and cause a breakdown in the defense. We want the defense to have to choose between 2 bad options - come over to help on the drive, leaving your man open on the perimeter.......or.......stick to your man and let the offensive player drive to the rim with a step on his defender. Of course, the other part of that is that our offensive player has to be comfortable making split section decisions on whether to pass or shoot and where the help is coming from. That was a big learning curve the first 15 games or so last year - we had a bunch of turnovers on guys hesitant to make that decision.

The other issue that sometimes arises is when we play long, athletic teams (Kentucky was one) that decide to refuse to help on the dribble drive and let their length defend the rim. We had a stretch in February when this happened and we weren't finishing at the rim. We struggled mightily because (a) we weren't finishing at the rim and (b) we weren't getting good, open 3 pt looks because nobody was helping off their man. A big part of that was JQ got sick and then was not himself for 2-3 weeks. Once JQ got back up to speed and Herb got healthy, we've been really difficult to defend, because teams just can't play aggressively on JQ (due to his shooting) AND stay in front of him. And if you can't stay in front of JQ, you are cooked, because our entire offense opens up. At that point, our offense is at worst above average and if we are making 3's almost unstoppable.

There are certain teams (Maryland a prime example) who just have no shot to guard us due to their personnel. I think there is a chance UCLA is also one of those teams. But, as noted above, we have to make good shots to really be able to fully take advantage of that.

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Man, this is going to sound so corny, and I'm not all about the "fambly" like Auburn tries to be, but our most recent football team and this basketball team, have played more for each other and celebrated each other's success more than any I've ever seen.

Watching the guys lose their minds on the bench when Petty hit those shots last night, watching the guys jump up and down when Dickerson came in for the final snap in the championship game... It really makes easy to root for teams like that.

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Absolutely agree. Both groups have a lot of good people who are talented and have elite levels of competitive nature and leadership.

It makes it a whole lot more fun to watch when you see that kind of stuff. The attachment to those teams is much deeper, IMHO. I felt the same way about that 2015 football team and I still look back on it in a different way than a lot of the teams of the Saban era. There was just something more there that resonated with me.

Bruh bruhs, this is fun.

Very different feel than Teague, Gary Busey, SOG, Robot, Bryant, Saint, Chad, Cobra, Big Bird, and myself bitching.

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Very different feel than Teague, Gary Busey, SOG, Robot, Bryant, Saint, Chad, Cobra, Big Bird, and myself bitching.

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SummerOfGeorge

Alabama Fan
DeKalb
Member since Jul 2013
79521 posts
Online

re: SEC Champions & Sweet 16 Bound Basketball Megathread | 26-6 (16-2)Posted on 12/13/20 at 10:53 am to mistaken4193

I don't want to fire the guy or anything but I am holding him to the things he himself said all off-season.

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SummerOfGeorge

Alabama Fan
DeKalb
Member since Jul 2013
79521 posts
Online

re: SEC Champions & Sweet 16 Bound Basketball Megathread | 26-6 (16-2)Posted on 12/13/20 at 5:06 pm to Chadaristic
I feel like our biggest issue is what we've all noted and Oats said publicly - we don't have guys who can get into the lane and make good decisions once the defense breaks down. If you can't do that this offense is just a bunch of guys running out of control into the lane and either shooting or pulling it out and starting the process over. The thing doesn't work unless you understand and can read when the defense is forced to collapse and then take advantage of it. And on top of that, we struggle more with the breaking down of the defense part than we did last year with Kira. However; I'd argue that JQ, Shack and Herb have done a decent job of beating guys off the dribble. The problem has been what they do after that.

Also - we're 240th nationally in 3 PT % (29.1%). Part of that is the 3s we are taking haven't consistently been as good, but part of it is we just aren't making shots. Theoretically that will return to the mean, but it'd be nice if that started sooner than later. We're 240th in 3P% and 219th in Effective FG%. It's hard to win games like that.

Here are the major teams worse than us in Effective FG%

220. Memphis (46.9%) (2-3) (#52 in offensive rebound rate) (57th in Effective FG D)
244. Houston (45.3%) (#7 in offensive rebound rate) (20th in Effective FG D)
248. Butler (44.7%) (played 1 game)
262. Washington (43.7%) (1-4) (62nd in Effective FG D)
280. Washington State (41.9%) (22nd in Effective FG D)
306. Tennessee (37.9%) (24th in Effective FG D) (5th in Defensive Efficiency)

We are 125th in Effective FG% defense and 152nd in Offensive Rebound Rate.



TL/DR - We don't shoot well, we don't offense rebound well and our defense is good but not great. That's a terrible arse combination.

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It feels so surreal to have a basketball team this good, using players from a past coaching regime (good players though, thanks Avery), but crushing it in only year 2.

This is obvious unrealistic, but does anyone else see the similarities between the job Oats has done so far and the turnaround Saban did for our football program?

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Bruh bruhs, this is fun.

Very different feel than Teague, Gary Busey, SOG, Robot, Bryant, Saint, Chad, Cobra, Big Bird, and myself bitching.

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LOL. Agreed. But, for the record, I mostly bitch(ed) about other posters (and Rojas). I'm all Rah Rah as far as the team.

But, yeah, let's keep winning.