re: Tide Hoops | 31-6 (16-2)

Yeah, Ingram is basically a poor man's Durant. If that's what Miller brings to the table we're going to really enjoy watching him for a year.

Recapping Alabama Men's Basketball at SEC Media Day (SI)

Before fielding questions from the media, Oats took a moment for an opening statement.

"It's good to be here, it's good to be back," Oats said. "It's the first Media Day since my first year, so things are looking to get back to normal which is great. We're looking forward to the year. We've got a good young group. Got a lot of new faces. We've got 12 kids on scholarship and only four of them have ever played a game for Alabama before and [Jahvon] Quinerly's out — so maybe SEC play [or] sometime in December with an ACL — so we'll have three guys that have ever played a game for us that won't be suiting up for their first game. That's Darius [Miles], Charles [Bediako] and Noah [Gurley].

"That means we've got eight new faces: four freshmen and the other ones are all transfers. We need a lot of production out of the new faces so I think you'll see some — at the beginning of the year, there may be some games where we're a little inconsistent. I think we've got a lot of room for growth and we're looking to try to be peaking at the end of the year, so we may go through a few growing pains early.

"We've got a tough non-conference schedule to get us ready, but we're looking forward to it."

The Pelicans are a sneaky NBA Finals quality team if Zion stays healthy. They got everything.

A Superstar: Zion
Elite scorers: BI and CJ
Lockdown defender to put on the other teams best player: Herb
Rebounder: Valenciunas
Shooting off the bench: Trey Murphy.

They are gonna be solid

They got it all.

Nate Oats SEC Media Days (18 mins)

Nate Oats Talks Summer Basketball, NCAA Tournament Expansion (SI)


Behind the Scenes from SEC Basketball Media Days (SI)

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Like, from a career standpoint?

Because Horry had a hand in several championship runs and made critical late game shots during pretty much all of them.

Herb is going to have a very long career though. Even if his offense never really takes off and he's just a role player on that end, good teams will always have a spot on their rosters for an elite defensive stopper who can guard nearly every player in the league effectively.

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From an overall impact standpoint. Statistically he won't get there. But if he can eventually bring average starter level offense to match his other worldly defensive ability, he has that type of ceiling IMO.

Horry hit a lot of big shots and has a lot of rings which won't be matched. However, I wouldn't consider him the biggest impact guy from Alabama, even with him being the most clutch by far. He only averaged double digits in points 3 times (3 of first 4 seasons) in the regular season and 4 times (first 4 seasons) in the playoffs all of which were with Houston. He also didn't bring a whole lot more than his scoring, not that he was a bad at anything in particular. I think his clutch status and rings alone put him up there as one of the best though.

I honestly think Herb makes several All-NBA First-Team Defense teams, and think he could walk away with a DPOTY honor which at his position is very rare to see. The fact that he is regularly the Pelicans +/- leader while scoring like 6 points is a testament to the impact he has on the floor on the defensive end.

Agreed. TCU is one of the more experienced teams this year and ranked in the same area as us. For the vets to get everyone together after that scrimmage, shows we may actually have a bit more leadership and a focus around the team compared to last season.

Oats also touched on yesterday that sometimes the big wins, like Gonzaga, were actually a negative as far as maintaining focus. Hopefully both the staff and returning players learn from those moments.

Weird that we are hosting a “charity” exhibition where students will likely get in free and no one else is allowed to go. Not sure how this benefits a charity in any way.