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

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#Alabama point guard Jahvon Quinerly says he's embraced his role coming off the bench

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Nate Oats on Jordan Bruner: “He was actually able to get some shots up at practice yesterday. Nothing like a game but walking around. He was on the bike at practice today. I’m hoping the 4-6 (week prognosis) they gave me is closer to 4.”

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With arenas operating without fans or at greatly reduced capacities, home teams have won just 57.3% of the time this season in Division I college basketball, the lowest figure since KenPom began tracking the statistic with the 1996-97 season, when home teams won 64.3% of their games

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#Alabama basketball coach Nate Oats on John Petty Jr.: "Petty might be the best shooter I've ever coached."

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Nate Oats just wrapped up a 20-minute Friday news conference in which we learned his neighbor growing up was a Frito-Lay delivery driver named Steve Moulton who would give Oats his outdated stock of chips.

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Nate Oats’ goal for this season was to finish in the top 40 for @kenpomeroy defensive efficiency.

Alabama is now top 10, better than even its 13th-ranked offense.

“Shoot, we’ve certainly exceeded my expectations. Now my expectations have changed a lot.”

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Alabama has outscored its past three opponents by an average of 27 points, including burying LSU in a record-setting barrage of three-point shooting Tuesday night.

But to attribute the Tide’s eight-game winning streak, first-place SEC standing and No. 10 NET ranking nationally to a run of hot shooting would be missing the mark.

In fact, the KenPom efficiency ratings used by Nate Oats and other coaches place Alabama’s defense 10th in the country and better than its 13th ranked offense this season.

The dueling rankings have created a friendly competition between assistant coach Charlie Henry, the team’s defensive coordinator, and assistant Antoine Pettway, the offensive coordinator.

“They both always look at our postgame analytics to see who did a better job,” Oats explained Friday. “They’re always looking at KenPom, and Charlie’s got the upper hand on Pettway right now. Pettway’s got to get our offense up to speed. Our offense isn’t quite to the level of our defense.

“They kind of joke around about that. But, shoot, I think they’re both playing pretty well right now. To say our offense isn’t quite at the level of our defense after we hit 23 threes [at LSU] is kind of an absurd statement, but those guys have a little bit of fun going back and forth like that.”

The marriage between offense and defense is shared by only a handful of other top teams this season. Gonzaga, Baylor, Michigan and Virginia were the only other schools Friday to fall within the top 13 nationally in KenPom’s offensive and defensive efficiency.

It is uncharted territory for Oats, whose best team at Buffalo finished 32-4 in 2018-19 and finished ranked 21st in offensive efficiency and 31st in defensive. After ranking 114th last season in defensive efficiency, Oats made it a goal to finish in the top 40 this season.

“Shoot, we’ve certainly exceeded my expectations,” Oats said. “Now my expectations have changed a lot now. We’re not trying to go backwards from this.”

Alabama will host Mississippi State (9-6 overall, 4-3 in SEC) on Saturday at 5 p.m. CT in Coleman Coliseum. The Tide will look to extend its winning streak to nine games, which would be the school’s longest since it won the first nine games of the 2002-03 season and rose to No. 1 nationally in the Associated Press poll.

Alabama is a No. 3 seed in Friday’s latest projected NCAA bracket by ESPN. The school’s top-10 NET ranking is boosted by a 4-1 record in Quadrant 1 games -- only Gonzaga, with five, has more wins in that category -- and a 5-1 mark in Quadrant 2 games, bested only by Wisconsin at 6-1.

The Tide could match its 8-0 start to SEC play in 1986-87 by beating Mississippi State on Saturday. The Bulldogs and Missouri, which hosts Alabama on Feb. 6, are the only two teams in the top eight of the conference that Alabama has yet to beat this season.

A win Saturday would also give Alabama as many league wins before the calendar flips to February as it had all of last season. Whether the Tide can sustain its pace into March remains to be seen.

“We don’t expect to go 18-0 [in the SEC],” Oats said Friday. “It would be nice -- we’re going to go into every single game expecting to win it -- but if and when we do take a loss, I’ve told the guys this too, let’s make sure it’s not because of an effort, or a focus, or a controllable factor. If we lose a game because we missed a lot of threes and they were great shots, we can live with that. That’s fine. You’re not gonna make 23 threes every game.

“But we can’t lose a game because somebody played harder than us, out-rebounded us because we didn’t give the proper effort, we didn’t prepare ourselves mentally coming into the game so we weren’t focused. We can’t have that. If we have one of those, I’m going to be really upset. Because we’ve set a standard that is really high here, and that’s not part of that standard.”

Oats questioned his team’s effort after early-season losses to Stanford and Clemson, but that has not been part of the conversation since Alabama’s third and most recent loss over a month ago to Western Kentucky.

“I told our guys, how we shoot it from three should only determine the margin of victory,” he said Friday. “If we do what we’re supposed to do on defense and rebounding, and taking care of the ball, that should take care of what we need it to. We may not be able to sustain the three-point percentages, but I think our locked-in intensity on the defensive end can continue to get better and better.”

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— Alabama was one of only six teams in the nation to rank inside the top 15 in both offensive and defensive efficiency according to KenPom.com. The Tide is currently ranked No. 13 in adjusted offense and No. 10 in adjusted defense. The only other schools to rank in the top 15 in both are Gonzaga (2/15), Baylor (4/1), Michigan (7/9), Virginia (11/10) and Texas (14/7).

— During Monday’s media session, Oats said there has been a friendly competition between assistants Antoine Pettway and Charlie Henry. Pettway coaches the offense while Henry coaches the defense.

“They both always look at our postgame analytics to see who did a better job,” Oats said. “They’re always looking at KenPom to see who has the upper hand. Pettway’s got our offense up to speed because our offense isn’t quite to the level of our defense. They kind of joke around about that.

“Shoot, I think they’re both playing pretty well right now. To say our offense isn’t quite at the level of our defense after we hit 23 3s is kind of an absurd statement, but those guys have a little fun going back and forth like that.”

— Joshua Primo hit a career-high six 3-pointers against LSU while matching his career-high of 22 points. It was the freshman’s third double-digit performance in his past four games. Friday, Primo said his role has been “pretty easy” due to the number of scorers Alabama has on the floor.

“With all the weapons that we have, it’s easy to slide in and contribute,” Primo said. “The guys give me a lot of confidence to shoot whenever I’m open, and they get me in open positions. So I’m always ready to shoot. The coaches have been working with me on staying ready, staying well and making sure I’m in a position where I can make shots and help the team score.”

Quinerly spoke highly of Primo on Friday, stating the freshman has progressed a lot over the last few months.

“He’s come along,” Quinerly said. “When he first got here, he was a nervous little freshman just how I was when I was a freshman. There’s a lot of older guys on this team. We try to give him confidence every day and just give him the little pointers ever now and then. But he’s a fast learner. He’s really been learning a lot.”

— Alabama is looking for its ninth straight win which would mark its longest streak since the 2002-03 season when it recorded nine consecutive victories en route to reaching No. 1 in the nation before losing.

— Alabama is also looking for its eighth straight SEC win. That would be the Tide’s second-best start to conference play, tying the 1986-87 and 1974-75 teams which also started SEC play 8-0. Alabama’s 1955-56 “Rocket 8” team finished the year with a perfect 14-0 mark in league play.

— Alabama ranks No. 10 in the NET rankings, the metric used by the NCAA tournament selection committee. The Tide has the second-highest ranking among SEC teams, trailing only No. 6 Tennessee. Alabama is 4-1 against Quad 1 teams and 5-1 against Quad 2 opponents. Mississippi State ranks No. 78 in the NET rankings, making it a Quad 3 opponent for Saturday’s matchup in Coleman Coliseum.

— Mississippi State leads the SEC with an +8.9 rebounding margin (39.7-30.8) which ranks No. 17 in the nation. The Bulldogs feature the SEC’s top rebounder in 6-foot-10 forward Tolu Smith who averages 8.8 boards per game.

“Mississippi State obviously offers some different challenges than what we’ve seen in conference play,” Oats said. “They’ve got some real bigs that we’re going to have to keep off the glass. They’re always one of the best rebounding teams in the country. They play hard. They’re well-coached, well-disciplined.”

— While Mississippi State doesn’t shoot as much as Alabama from beyond the arc, the Bulldogs lead the SEC shooting 37.2 percent from 3. Sophomore Iverson Molinar leads the team, making 51.4 percent (18 of 35) of his shots from deep.

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Lot of Saban vibes/mentality all in here. The culture of this program is going to be incredible.

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