Charles Bediako Continues to Impress on Defense for Alabama Basketball
On Tuesday night, Alabama basketball will close out its first portion of the regular season when it plays Davidson in the C.M. Newton Classic at Legacy Arena in downtown Birmingham, Ala.. For the Crimson Tide, the game represents one final opportunity to gain momentum heading into a grueling Southeastern Conference schedule that is loaded with top-25 talent.
Over the past couple of games, Alabama has experienced struggles on the offensive end of the court. Outside of senior guard Keon Ellis and junior guard Jahvon Quinerly, the Crimson Tide has had a relatively tough time making baskets. The lack of offensive production has stolen the spotlight from another issue that Alabama was facing until the Jacksonville State game: its defense.
At Memphis, Alabama surrendered 92 points in the loss. 44 of those points for the Tigers came in the paint, while another 24 came from beyond the arc. With the help of 13 offensive rebounds, Memphis was able to handle the Crimson Tide with relative ease.
Saturday night's game against Jacksonville State was another story. Led by freshman center Charles Bediako, the Crimson Tide was able to hold the Gamecocks to just 59 points. Rebounding improved for Alabama, with the team wrangling in 41 rebounds on the night. Bediako himself accounted for seven rebounds and also blocked five shots.
After the game, Alabama head coach Nate Oats was pleased with Bediako's performance but also reiterated that his team's overall defense needs to do a better job.
"Charles has really come along," Oats said. "I thought his energy was great tonight blocking shots, getting some tough rebounds, five blocks — [he] rebounded it much better tonight than he had and it seemed like for a while there that we could only get stops when he was in the game. We needed him to anchor our defense. He gets into too much foul trouble. Some of that's on him, some of that's on our guards getting beat on so many blow-bys and we gotta get better.
"Our perimeter defense by our guards has got to improve. We can't continue to put Charles in the spots he's in trying to stay vertical at the rim because these guys are getting blown by all the time. So our perimeter defense by our guards has to get better but Charles is really helping us on the defensive end immensely."
On Monday morning, Alabama basketball dropped four spots in the AP Top 25 due to its lopsided loss at Memphis. The Crimson Tide's defensive effort against the Gamecocks was likely one of primary reasons that it didn't drop further. As the team prepares for its neutral-site game against Davidson, one thing is certain: if Alabama wants to maintain its position heading into its tough SEC schedule, its defense is going to have to play better as a whole.
And that starts with the team playing more like their freshman center in Bediako.
"Our defense was good enough to win it for us but our team defense has gotten better at times, I just think that our guards are just getting beat on blow-bys too much," Oats said after the JSU game. "We gotta try to dominate our matchups a little bit better than what we're currently doing. It is a good thing that we've got Charles back there to protect the rim."
Through the Crimson Tide's first 11 games of the season, Bediako leads the team in blocks by a considerable margin with 24. In steals, the freshman trails only Ellis with 12 on the year thus far. In rebounds, Bediako is fourth on the team with 50.
Despite being a true freshman, Bediako has come to Tuscaloosa and made an immediate impact. While fellow true freshman guard J.D. Davison had the majority of the attention in Alabama's 2021 class — and with good reason — Bediako has been a consistent contributor on the defensive end of the court for the Crimson Tide.
Bediako said that following the Memphis game, he and his teammates' emphasis was on defense. As revealed by his stat line for the game against JSU, the work that he put in at practice seemed to pay off.
"I think today in our game, our biggest emphasis was just defense — especially rebounding — because obviously last game against Memphis is was a real tough one," Bediako said. "So today, the defense was pretty much our big emphasis for the past two days in practice and we had two great practices, so I think that definitely helped me get prepared for today."
The season is far from over, with Alabama only having played 11 of its 31 games this season. The loss at Memphis was certainly a tough pill to swallow for both the Crimson Tide and its fans, but the game could serve as a wake-up call to the team's players regarding what it needs to improve on as the team plays on into 2022.
And for Alabama to continue its improvement on defense, it will be players like Bediako that ultimately make the biggest difference.
"When he was in the game, our defensive efficiency numbers were a .77 where the team tonight was a .97 so we're 20 points better per 100 possessions on the defensive end when he's in the game versus when he wasn't," Oats said. "He was our leader in that category and he played really well."
