Alabama Eliminates Turnover Problem in Rout of Ole Miss
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — It's no secret to anyone in the SEC, nor the rest of the college basketball world, that the Alabama Crimson Tide has a really good basketball team this year.
Alabama boasts one of the best freshmen and players in the country, a plethora of talent on both ends of the floor, and already has wins over some of the nation's best.
If there was one glaring issue with this Alabama basketball team, though, it would be its tendency to turn the basketball over.
Before Tuesday night's 84-62 victory over Ole Miss, the Crimson Tide ranked 357th nationally — or 7th-worst in all of college basketball — in turnovers per game.
Alabama was averaging just over 17 turnovers every game. On Tuesday night, it had just seven — a season low.
"We didn't try to overcomplicate the stuff with the turnovers," Alabama head coach Nate Oats said. "We needed guys to simplify it and make simple plays."
Even in some of its biggest wins of the season, the Crimson Tide overcame an abundance of turnovers and pulled out wins in spite of its bad habits. Alabama turned it over 15 times in the win over Houston, 19 times in the win over Memphis, and 22 times in the win over North Carolina.
"You know, coach [Oats] has been harping on us," freshman guard Jaden Bradley said. "We've been keeping track of them at practice, trying to keep them down to a minimum to help our offense be more efficient."
To improve on this, Oats cited film study as a primary means of analysis and examination.
"We go though the video, see how we're turning it over," Oats said. "[We] try to eliminate the careless ones, when we're driving into tight gaps. Try to eliminate the travels, stepping out of bounds, the moving screens. We've been turning it over all sorts of different ways."
Oats also mentioned the types of turnovers that did occur being more beneficial for the team.
"I didn't think we had very many live ball turnovers at all," Oats said. "At least if we did turn it over they weren't scoring off of it."
Perhaps most notably, Alabama's leader in turnovers per game on the season, Jahvon Quinerly, had zero turnovers the entire game. Quinerly had struggled mightily with turnovers after retutning from a torn ACL, but has shown significant signs of improvement in recent weeks highlighted by Tuesday's zero-turnover performance.
"We need [Quinerly] to take care of the ball," Oats said. "Obviously, that was big for him tonight. [...] He played pretty loose tonight. Not in the sense that he was turning it over but in the sense that he was pulling up and making shots and looked comfortable doing it."
Quinerly's teammates have full confidence that this will become a trend for the senior point guard.
"He's definitely going to have more games like that, where he has zero turnovers," Bradley said.
With SEC play now in full swing, Alabama gets a visit from the Kentucky Wildcats on Saturday, who have fallen out of the AP Top 25 but, as always, has a wealth of talent that makes them as dangerous as any team in the country.
Tipoff between Alabama and Kentucky is set for 12 p.m. CT in Coleman Coliseum and will be broadcast on ESPN.
See also:
No. 7 Alabama Basketball Blows Out Ole Miss to Open Home SEC Slate with Win
