Alabama Basketball is Not Built For March Success? Don't Buy it: All Things CW

For the third straight year, the Crimson Tide was eliminated from the NCAA tournament by a lower-seeded team.

Author:
Christopher Walsh
Publish date:
Mar 27, 2023 5:00 PM EDT

In this story:

Alabama Crimson Tide

It didn't take long for the question to come up during the postgame press conference at the South Region in Louisville over the weekend: Is there something in the way about how Alabama basketball plays that makes it prone to being knocked out early in the NCAA tournament?

Let's cut to the chase. The answer is no. If a couple of more shots had fallen, or a few other things had gone differently one wouldn't be questioning anything, and you just don't go away from a winning formula for a game at the end of a long campaign.

Nevertheless, you know that Nate Oats is doing the equivalent of some soul searching when it comes to the future of his program and its approach.

Alabama set a team record for wins, won the SEC regular-season title and tournament championship, plus secured the first No. 1 seeding in the NCAA tournament in program history. In many respects it was a great season.

However, this was the third straight year that the Crimson Tide saw its March end early, prior to what its seeding dictated in the NCAA tournament, although this time there was only one way to avoid that.

"You know, we were going to lose to a team seeded lower than us unless we won the national championship this year," Nate Oats said as part of his response. "We were the No. 1 overall seed."

In 2021, Alabama ran into a really good UCLA team and lost in overtime. Last year it capped a winless March with a first-round loss after starting guard Jahvon Quinerly blew out his knee in the opening minutes against Notre Dame.

This year's setback was tougher to swallow for Alabama fans because everything basically had to go right for a veteran San Diego State team to win in the Sweet 16, and it did. That and the way the brackets opened up only magnified how much of a missed opportunity this was, and what might have been.

Consequently, they'll be debating for years things like how much of a setback freshman forward Brandon Miller's groin injury was, how having such a young roster eventually caught up to the Crimson Tide, the emotional toll the last couple of months took (which can't be overstated), how much tighter the games were called in the NCAA tournament, and even if the ball being used hurt 3-point shooting.

Let's put some of that into perspective.

For the season, Alabama shot 44.0 percent from the field, 33.1 percent from 3-point range, and grabbed 44.6 rebounds per game. Those numbers should have decreased a bit during the postseason, when it's supposed to be harder to win games.

Here's are the team totals from its two tournaments. On paper the Crimson Tide faced a tougher trio at the SEC tournament than it did in March Madness.

In the SEC tournament, Alabama faced Mississippi State, No. 25 Missouri and No. 18 Texas A&M. It obviously went 3-0, and outscored the opposition 224-179.

In the NCAA tournament, it played Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Maryland and San Diego State, which of course won the South Region and advanced to the Final Four.

Alabama in SEC, NCAA tournaments

Field goals: 62-190 (32.6 percent); 79-199 (39.7 percent)
3-point shooting: 33-100 (33.3 percent); 24-81 (29.6 percent)
Free throws: 29-42 (69.0 percent); 51-71 (71.8 percent)
Off-def. rebounds: 44-92 136 (45.3 average); 50-94 142 (47.3 average)

Fouls: 47; 58
Assists: 55; 38
Turnovers: 36; 33
Blocks: 17; 17
Steals: 16; 18

Points in the paint: 94; 104
Points off turnovers: 37; 34
Second-chance points: 33; 54
Fast-break points: 48; 23

Leading scorers

SEC: Brandon Miller 61; Charles Bediako 33; Jahvon Quinerly 33; Noah Clowney 33; Noah Gurley 18

NCAA: Jahvon Quinerly 45; Mark Sears 37; Charles Bediako 29; Brandon Miller 28; Nick Pringle 27

Leading rebounders

SEC: Brandon Miller 33; Charles Bediako 24; Noah Clowney 19; Noah Gurley 11; Rylan Griffen 11

NCAA: Charles Bediako 25; Brandon Miller 23; Noah Clowney 21; Nick Pringle 21; Mark Sears 16

Miller not scoring against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi was certainly surprising, but Alabama didn't need him to put up points in that game, and besides, he only attempted five shots.

However, for the NCAA tournament Miller was 8-for-41, for 19.5 percent. In comparison, for the season he shot 43.0 percent. He hit at a rate of 42.2 percent in the SEC tournament, including 5-for-20 in during the game he suffered the injury.

The decline in rebounds was not as extreme, but may have been just as telling. Miller averaged a team-best 11.0 boards in the SEC tournament, but 7.7 in its NCAA counterpart.

As for Alabama's six postseason opponents:

Opponents

Field goals 60-190 (31.6 percent); 71-198 (35.9 percent)
3-point shooting 13-53 (24.5 percent); 14-45 (31.1 percent)
Free throws 40-48 (83.3 percent); 41-61 (67.2 percent)
Off-def. rebounds 39-76 107 (35.7 average); 44-80 124 (41.3 average)

Fouls: 46; 54
Assists 20; 34
Turnovers 30; 31
Blocks 9; 21
Steals 20; 20

Points in the paint: 70; 98
Points off turnovers: 30; 34
Second-chance points: 35; 40
Fast-break points: 28; 32

For the season, opponents averaged 37.3 field-goal shooting, 29.0 percent from beyond the arc, and 37.0 rebounds.

Granted, there were a lot of surprising statistics from the Alabama basketball loss to San Diego State, like shooting 3 of 27 from 3-point range. But the fact that it didn't score any fast-break points pretty well indicated that this wasn't just a matter of being unable to hit from beyond the arc.

Slowing the Crimson Tide was a goal of every team in the postseason, but the first five failed. Combined with Alabama not playing particularly well, one eventually did it better than anyone else.

That's why the physical, veteran Aztecs are still playing and the Crimson Tide is back home in Tuscaloosa.