re: Tide Hoops | Please Anchor

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Jahvon Quinerly says it’s "not 100 percent” that this will be his final season at Alabama.

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Jahvon Quinerly says it’s "not 100 percent” that this will be his final season at Alabama.

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Will Gottfried be there?

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Alabama Athletics@UA_Athletics·24m
We know you've been waiting on this one...

We decided to end the season with a bang at Coleman. Red Panda will be performing at halftime next Wednesday. You don't want to miss it!

#RollTide | @AlabamaMBB

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“All four of them have indicated that they’re going to look at that,” Nate Oats says of professional opportunities for Jahvon Quinerly, Keon Ellis, Jaden Shackelford and JD Davison.

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“Right now the best thing they can be doing for their stock and their future is doing whatver they need to do to win games,” Oats added, noting Josh Primo’s stock rose as Alabama advanced last season.

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Offseason decisions still loom for Jahvon Quinerly, rest of Alabama’s backcourt

Alabama will honor junior guard Jahvon Quinerly among its seniors when it hosts South Carolina on Saturday in Coleman Coliseum, but that does not mean this is the end of the road for Quinerly in Tuscaloosa.

“It’s not, like, 100 percent set in stone,” Quinerly said Friday. “That’s a decision that’s gonna be made at the end of the year.”

Quinerly, who turned 23 last November, is four years removed from his final season of high school basketball. He played in 2018-19 for Villanova, then transferred to Alabama and had to sit out the 2019-20 season because of NCAA rules at the time. He has played the past two seasons for Alabama but has eligibility remaining.

Asked Friday how he would rate his decision to transfer to Alabama, Quinerly responded, “That’s a good question. I’d rate it a 10. The journey I’ve been through and just finding the right program that values me for what I bring to the table. It’s been a great run. I’m excited to see how far we can go this year and I’m always gonna remember what I did at Alabama.”

After Quinerly shot 43 percent on three-pointers last season and was named SEC tournament MVP, some projections for the 2022 NBA draft placed him in the second round. Quinerly’s scoring has ticked up to 14.1 points per game this season, spent mostly as a starter, but his three-point shooting has slipped to 25.8 percent. Projections of Quinerly being drafted this June are now less common and he is ESPN’s 78th-ranked prospect for the 60-pick draft.

Quinerly and two other scholarship players, James Rojas and Keon Ellis, will be recognized by the school on senior day -- but this could be the final season for other Alabama players, too.

Guards Jaden Shackelford and JD Davison are likely to join Quinerly and Ellis in exploring professional options, coach Nate Oats said Friday.

“I think after the season we’ll sit down and go through it all and what makes the most sense,” Oats said. “But all four of them have indicated that they’re going to look at that. I would guess based on feedback they get, some are staying -- maybe all are staying. We don’t know. We’ll kind of evaluate that after the year.”

Davison is projected No. 27 overall in ESPN’s latest 2022 mock draft this week, a drop from predictions earlier in the season that placed him in the top half of the first round. Davison leads Alabama’s rotation players in averaging 4.5 turnovers per 40 minutes and is shooting 29 percent from three-point range.

Ellis is projected by ESPN to be taken No. 49 overall, in the second round, while Shackelford is not among ESPN’s top 100 ranked players for the draft. Shackelford entered the NBA draft pool last offseason but was not invited to the combine and later withdrew his name.

“The one thing I do tell them is -- and it proved true last year -- the more this team wins, the higher their stock goes,” Oats said. “Like, at that level, they’re paid a lot of money to find winners. So if we didn’t win at the level we won at last year, Josh Primo doesn’t go 12th in the draft.

“Right now the best thing they can be doing for their stock and their future is doing whatever we need them to do to win games. Because if they prove if they’re capable of helping the team win, then their stock goes up. They all need to play defense. At that level, you need to be able to guard your position. So they all got to be able to play defense. You got to move the ball and be unselfish. Pretty much whatever you need to do to help us win is going to improve your draft stock. So I think they’re all in the right frame of mind.

“I think Quinerly just had a great game at Vanderbilt. JD’s playing as hard as he’s played all year. Shack has been playing well -- I mean, he’s had a couple of down games over the past month-and-a-half or so -- but he’s been playing pretty well for the last month and half. And Keon is -- shoot, I saw a graph come out, he’s like the most efficient wing in the country. I think they’re all trending in the right direction, we just need this team to continue to trend in the right direction.”

Even if all four of Alabama’s top guards this season do not return, the Tide would enter next season with three former McDonald’s All-Americans in its backcourt. One is already on the roster in Nimari Burnett, who transferred from Texas Tech last offseason but suffered a season-ending knee injury in preseason practice. Two others will join as five-star freshmen in Jaden Bradley and Brandon Miller. Alabama also added another freshman guard in Rylan Griffen and should have Jusaun Holt returning as a sophomore.

Among its front court, Alabama received word from Noah Gurley that he will come back next fall for a sixth and final season of college basketball. That option of returning is also available to Rojas and Ellis because of the NCAA’s COVID-19 waiver for the 2020-21 season.

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