re: Aden Holloway visiting Alabama on Thursday

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He's a solid back up in the SEC at the very least.

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Holloway started that game and shot 0-for-7, including 0-for-5 on three-pointers. The message from Oats: his team would not be as fortunate when it played two weeks later at Auburn's Neville Arena.

"We'll see a better version of them," Oats said of Auburn. "Holloway is going to play better."

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Oats was certainly right about Auburn, which pummeled Alabama by 18 points on February 7. But his optimism about Holloway did not pan out, as the freshman came off the bench to shoot only 1-of-6, including 1-of-5 on threes, in the rematch against Alabama. That was part of a dwindling role for the No. 16 overall recruit in the 2023 class, who played in only 13 minutes of Auburn's NCAA tournament first-round loss to Yale, shooting 1-of-5.

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This year at Auburn, it was a major surprise to see him only shoot 30% from behind the arc, despite getting steady volume with nearly 5 attempts per game, which accounted for two-third of his total field goal attempts.

Part of the reason why his shooting failed to translate as expected, is that he was unable to make opposing defenders pay for taking away the arc. Holloway has always been somewhat undersized without the elite level explosiveness to compensate, but he had significant struggles finishing plays at the rim this year in the SEC, converting at just a 26% rate per Pivot Analysis. His pull-up game is plenty capable, but it was relatively non-existent this year with only 18 attempts in 35 games.

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Defensively, there were times where he was overmatched physically, specifically in isolations, and other times when he had some typical freshman growing pains. The metrics bare this out as Auburn's defense was better with him off the floor, but there's enough competitiveness and awareness that he should be fine long-term so long as he isn't mismatched against notably bigger or more explosive guards."

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