H2 For You: Pros and Cons of Alabama Basketball's Fast Tempo
High school basketball players must love to watch it. The players on the Alabama roster must love it, too. It's the fast-paced tempo, the inflated amount of 3-point shots, the number of players who get minutes, and how far from boring it is to fans.
It borders mastery of innovation, with nearly half of the Crimson Tide's shots taken from behind the arc. It’s 1990s Florida football under Steve Spurrier translated onto the hardwood. It’s score, score, score, and more entertaining than the rest.
(Late) welcome to the era of Nate Oats, who soon enters year three as the head coach of Alabama hoops.
As someone who’s watched college basketball for 15 years or so, or since Dick Vitale had less and less to say, I’ve yet to witness as quick of a rebuild as the one Oats assembled in the dark hallways of Coleman Coliseum—minus, and you'll hate to hear it, the work done by Arkansas coach Eric Musselman.
The Crimson Tide went from an NIT loss to Norfolk State to a sweep of conference crowns in two seasons, and its demonstrative announcement to the nation asked a spreads-like-wildfire-type question: Has Oats already built a sustainable winner in Tuscaloosa?
We’ll see.
Alabama’s loss in the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA Tournament to UCLA left me both impressed in a broader sense and curious at the micro level.
It was a product of multiple things: a single-minded approach to scoring (3-point shots), lack of a proven half-court philosophy, at least compared to its transitional up-and-down style, and the absence of a clear, ball-handling hierarchy when clarity of attack is imperative.
The 'look to one guy' thing is real in sports, and in college basketball it should typically be the lead guard, the player who eases the nerves of those around him, like soon-to-be eldest guard Jahvon Quinerly who can provide that this season.
As for the bigger picture, how do you balance that fast of pace for 38 minutes, Alabama's most suitable option, but maintain momentum and rhythm when the game slows down in the final two minutes of play, when full-court shrinks to half and efficiency is required most?
The chief decider of close basketball games, offensive efficiency in closing moments was most responsible in ending postseason play for an Alabama team synonymous with the visor-wearin’ Spurrier jargon of Fun ‘n’ Gun coined way back when ‘The Swamp’ was more than a hotbox of humidity.
As the score got tight, so did Crimson Tide players. At least in the big dance. The rigidity of what basketball often requires late, methodically-run offensive sets, etc., was the antithesis of Alabama basketball all year long.
That style of game led to costly missed free throws to the Bruins and fatal turnovers as a result of, ironically, more inaction than action on offense once the pace slowed.
Therein lies the problem, right, tempo of play and its adverse effects?
Well …
National runner-up Gonzaga led the country in offensive efficiency in 2021, per KenPom, and did so with a higher tempo, or possessions per 40 minutes, than Alabama. When the Crimson Tide had possession, meanwhile, it ranked 30th in efficiency and 11th in tempo.
That tells me this: it isn’t about the speed at which your offense operates, but rather when points are harder to come by in late-game situations, it’s about shot selection.
The Zags were fast on offense, obviously, but not at the expense of poise in pressure-filled settings. Oftentimes it's about coming to a compromise with the collective congruence of the team and the best way to win in the moment, whatever that may be.
Take it in, the never-before-revealed secret of tournament success.
When the size of the court synchronously dwindles with the time on the clock, quality of shot outweighs quantity of shots, the latter of which being Alabama’s offensive identity, a singular one at that.
I’m not telling you anything Oats hasn’t (assumably) examined at a cellular level this offseason, though.
It's something that requires some introspection for a coach who perfectly walks the tightrope of aggression and calculation, as if he’s a Criss Angel adherer roaming bench areas to tame his coarsely-flowing itch of adrenaline.
This season, how Alabama remedies the ill effects of truth serum it digested in mid-March could be a determinant of how proactive-over-reactive the identity of the program is moving forward.
How Oats and Co. better prepare the group in practice for those big moments will have a hand in shaping the outcome of the college basketball season, and I'm interested to see what adjustments are made.
It is year three, ultimately, meaning the Crimson Tide’s surely trademarked-pending 3-point shots powered by back-in-vogue bazookas—acquired via the right and left liberal wrists—won’t come as a surprise, nor be met by unpreparedness of its opponents.
The countermove comes next, and I’m thinking ‘Bama will have a good one.
