re: Tide Hoops | Please Anchor

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Alabama gearing up to face Arkansas, 'the hottest team in the SEC'

The Alabama men’s basketball team is coming off its best shooting performance of the season, a 97-83 win on the road at Ole Miss where the Crimson Tide shot 63.6 percent from three.

But a team that is much hotter than Alabama is its next opponent, the Arkansas Razorbacks.

Arkansas enters Saturday's contest at Coleman Coliseum (11 a.m. CT tip-off on SEC Network) having won nine consecutive games to improve to 19-5 overall and 8-3 in conference play.

“It’s a huge game for us,” head coach Nate Oats said Friday.

“We get the hottest team in the SEC at home. They’ve won nine straight. They’re playing great. They just knocked off Auburn, so they’re obviously on a high. (JD) Notae’s playing as well as anybody in the league. He’s leading the league in scoring. Jaylin Williams has taken 34 charges. Coach Musselman has got these guys playing the right way. They’re playing tough, they’re playing together. They’ve got guys understanding their roles. They’re a good team.

“We had a good offensive performance against Ole Miss. I thought our defense took a step back. I thought our defense was good against Kentucky, so we’ve gotta get a full game together to be able to beat Arkansas. But it’s good, we’ve got a home game. I think four of our next six games, I think, are at home, so we’ve gotta really take care of home-court advantage.

“... We’re excited to play. I think our guys are excited. It’s gonna be a tough game, though.”

Alabama (15-9, 5-6 SEC) owns a 21-8 advantage in the series in games played in Tuscaloosa, but Arkansas has won eight of the last 10 meetings. The teams split last season’s series, each winning on their home floors, which the Crimson Tide hopes to be the case on Saturday.

Entering the contest, the Razorbacks lead the nation in free throws made (411) and attempted (554), which averages out to 17.1 made and 23.1 attempted per game, while the team’s 74.2 percent at the charity stripe ranks second in the SEC. Arkansas is out-scoring its opponents by 10.3 ppg (78.6-68.3) while shooting 45.0 percent from the field and 30.6 percent from beyond the arc. Defensively, the Hogs are allowing foes to shoot 41.2 percent from the floor and 33.5 percent from deep, and also own a plus-2.7 advantage in rebounds (38.6-33.7).

The Razorbacks are led by senior guard JD Notae, who averages 19.1 points per game to lead the team and the SEC. He also paces his squad in assists (3.4 apg), steals (2.3 spg), minutes (33.5 mpg), field goals made (159) and attempted (376) and threes made (51) and attempted (167). He scored 28 points in Arkansas’ last outing and its biggest win of the season.

On Tuesday night in Fayetteville, the Razorbacks defeated No. 1 Auburn by a score of 80-76 in front of a record home crowd of 20,327 fans. It marked the program’s second-ever win over the nation’s top-ranked team (2-11 overall). Oftentimes, teams can have a letdown after a huge win like Arkansas just had, but Oats and company are still expecting the Hogs’ best shot.

“They seem like they’ve gone through their stretch of not taking teams seriously when they started 0-3,” Oats said. “It seems like they’ve figured all of that out. If they’re won nine in a row, my guess is they’re pretty locked in, playing the right way. I don’t think we’re gonna hope to get them on a bad night.

“We’re gonna have to go beat them when they’re playing their best basketball, which is fine. We need to be playing our best basketball come the middle of February, end of February, March, so let’s go ahead and play teams when they’re playing their best.”

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Three predictions for Arkansas-Alabama

Three predictions for Alabama (15-9, 5-6) in its matchup with Arkansas (19-5, 8-3) Saturday at Coleman Coliseum (11 a.m. CT/SEC Network).

For the first time this season, Arkansas guard JD Notae will post back-to-back 20-point games

Prepare yourselves for the Notae- Jaden Shackelford Show.

The SEC’s leading scorer at 19.1 points per game, Notae is coming off a 28-point performance in the Razorbacks’ overtime upset of No. 1 Auburn on Tuesday night. For all of his scoring prowess, the senior guard hasn’t strung together consecutive 20-point outings this season.

Even when he isn’t getting buckets, Notae leads the Razorbacks in other areas, ranking first on the team in assists (3.5 per game) and steals (2.4 per game) and second in defensive rebounds (4.1 per game). While he’s capable of producing turnovers on the defensive end, he’s not a shutdown defender on the ball, so UA guards should be able to get the ball into the paint, where they’re likely to encounter 6-foot-10 post Jaylin Williams, who averages nearly a double-double per game.

A streaky shooter from 3, Notae heads to Tuscaloosa having made three of 15 shots from behind the arc in his last two games. In the three contests prior — wins over Ole Miss, West Virginia and Georgia — he made good on 9 of 19 attempts from deep.

In last year’s second matchup with the Crimson Tide, an 81-66 win for the Razorbacks in Fayetteville, Notae came off the bench to score 12 points in 16 minutes of action. The aforementioned Williams added 13 points and eight rebounds. In Alabama's 90-59 win over the Razorbacks in Tuscaloosa earlier in the season, Notae scored five points while Williams was shutout.

Notae getting 20 Saturday becomes a bigger problem if three or four of his teammates hit double figures, something Williams and guards Au'Diese Toney and Davonte Davis did in the win over Auburn.

Of course, the same can be said for Shackelford, who has scored 20 or more in five of his last seven games. When he gets support along the lines of what he received at Ole Miss -- fellow guards Jahvon Quinerly, Keon Ellis and JD Davison combined for 40 points and 18 assists in the win -- UA's deficiencies on the defensive end don't seem to show up as much.

Neither team will shoot 35 percent or higher from 3

Did the efficient performance from 3 in Oxford Wednesday night signal a turning of the corner for Alabama or was it merely a random hot performance in a season in which there have been previous few for Crimson Tide shooters?

While it's difficult to get the 3 for 30 against Kentucky from last Saturday out of my mind, it's worth noting that UA has connected on a season-high 14 3s in two of its last three games. The problem with that stat is that both of those efforts came on the road. Meanwhile, in five SEC home games this season, Alabama has made more than 23 percent of its 3-point shots just once; an 86-76 win over Missouri on Jan. 22 that saw UA covert on 33 percent of its 27 attempts.

As for Arkansas, these aren't exactly the 1993-1994 Razorbacks from range (although after what they saw from Ole Miss midweek, some Alabama fans won't be surprised if this Arkansas team offers a spot-on impersonation). The Hogs currently rank 13th in the SEC in 3-point shooting at 30.6 percent. Of their three players with more than 65 attempts on the season, only one -- senior guard Stanley Umude -- is converting more than 33 percent of his hoists.

With those numbers in mind, here's guessing both teams will get to the line a good bit. They got there a combined 86 times in their two matchups a season ago.

Arkansas coach Eric Musselman will keep his shirt on after this one

In the wild aftermath of Arkansas' upset of Auburn earlier in the week, it appeared for a second there as if Musselman might go Frank The Tank from "Old School" and lead a run to the Quad. A night later, Nate Oats remained fully clothed following his team's first SEC road win since Florida on Jan. 5.

As for this one, confidence would seem to favor the team that has won nine in a row. That would be Arkansas, whose current streak includes both of its Quad 1 wins -- LSU and Auburn -- on the season. It could be, though, that an Alabama team coming off its best offensive performance of the campaign is coming at just the wrong time for the Razorbacks.

Either way, don't expect a final spread resembling those of a year ago, when the two teams split games that were decided by 31 and 16 points, respectively. Or a court-storming and/or Chippendales audition, for that matter.

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It's actually a lot closer than I thought.


Miles - 20/59 (33.9%)
JD - 19/60 (31.7%)

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