Houston @ Alabama - TBS 7 CST

I’ve really enjoyed the early season Houston games for the past few years. It’s been a great barometer for the team’s capabilities moving forward. It’s a prime time game in Las Vegas tournament as well, which should add to the excitement.

I haven’t watched Houston play outside of the Auburn game, but they appear to be a stereotypical Kelvin Sampson team, through and through. Talented and deep with a stifling defense and a better than typical Houston offense to boot.

Alabama has played a tougher schedule thus far, but it’s hard to play that card 4 games into the season. I know we’ve been a little sloppy with TO’s to this point and that’s probably my largest concern going into this game. It’s so cliché, but we’ll have to do a good job taking care of the ball in this one.

Based on their tempo ranking, I’m assuming they like to play a half court game. Hopefully that plays to our size and pace advantages, but we’ll have to make the good looks we’ve been missing a lot of so far this year to hurt them in transition (if we get the opportunities).

It should be a fun game and it would be nice to get another fun win to start off an extremely tough stretch during OOC play. I’m a little surprised to see Houston favored, especially with a win prediction percent as high 70%+. I think it’s easily a 50/50 game at worst if we can show up and efficiently play to our strengths, but we’re still young and learning to play as a group.

Thoughts or input from anyone that’s watched more non-Alabama games than me this season? Keys to the game or guys to watch? I’m a little lost without the megathread (RIP), so I thought a pre-game discussion thread might get the ball rolling.