Missouri Basketball to Play Shorthanded Against Alabama Due to COVID-19 Issues
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — For its second consecutive road game, No. 15 Alabama basketball is gearing up to travel to Columbia, Mo. to take on the Missouri Tigers on Saturday afternoon.
While the Crimson Tide and coach Nate Oats haven't had to undergo any pauses this season thus far due to COVID-19, the same can't be said for the Tigers. Missouri hasn't played a game since Dec. 29, where it lost 83-56 at Kentucky. Since then, the Tigers had their game against Mississippi State postponed due to COVID issues on their roster.
On Friday morning, Missouri head coach Cuonzo Martin discussed the difficulties of coming back to play a game 10 days after their most recent outing.
“It’s tough from the standpoint of it’s not normal, but it is in our society now,” Martin said. “And it’s hard for me to make an excuse about it especially if you have enough to play, and I’m excited to really play, our guys are excited to play. You like to have all your guys there because that’s how you practice. There’s [a] comfort level with certain guys that you have on your team, [and] when they’re not around, it doesn’t feel right. The hard part: you can’t duplicate 5-on-5 unless you’ve got a coach out there and I’m certainly not getting out there because I can’t move so you can’t do those things.
"But you practice enough where the rhythm, the reps, the toughness stuff you try to get that in so now when you’re playing a game, guys are familiar with it. And then you’ve got some guys that maybe play out of position that they’re not used to just because of the numbers and he has to be ready to go in the game and play a position that he’s not used to in practice. But he still has to be productive. There’s no excuse. You still have to be productive and get the job done.”
Martin also revealed that the Tigers will be down three scholarship players for their game against the Crimson Tide on Saturday. While he didn't say who in particular will be missing, he did say that having three players out with COVID has made things difficult in practice due to being shorthanded.
On the opposite side of things, Alabama has had yet to have a COVID pause this season. After starting the season 11-3, the Crimson Tide still hasn't had to stop any operations due to COVID issues among the program.
That doesn't mean that Oats doesn't have a plan set up in place should multiple players test positive, though. While Oats hasn't had to experience the issue firsthand, he has talked with coaches who have had to undergo the process and knows what he will have to do should the time come.
“I can’t totally answer the question on what it would be like coming back off one,” Oats said. “I’ve talked to other coaches that have done it. Obviously it’s shorter now. Back when it was 10 days, you gotta kinda ramp back up. After five days, there’s a little bit of a ramp up and guys can definitely can get a little bit out of shape after five days. So if we were gonna have to do it, my thought process would be to go one, we gotta get back in shape. Can’t overdo it and kill them right out of it, but you’ve got to gradually over a few days build them back up and then two is you gotta get your skill level back.
"Christmas break we had four days off over Christmas so that’d be the most similar thing I could come up with. Bring them back, you go really hard and just try to work on us, not really focus on the opponent at all on Day 1, then Day 2 get to the opponent and start working on some of that stuff.”
Missouri has started its season with a 6-7 record and is currently unranked. Alabama is 11-3 and is ranked in the AP Top 25, but has not won in Columbia since Oats was hired back in 2019.
While the Crimson Tide will be on the warpath to try and right that shortcoming, Martin is content with the week of practice that his team was able to accomplish despite not having a full roster at their disposal.
“I thought it was a very productive week,” Martin said. “It was one of those weeks like when you have your first week of actual college practice and I thought the energy was great — the enthusiasm, the work-ethic. We’ve been getting two [practices] in a day in the morning and in the p.m.. I thought the guys have done a great job really just working extremely hard, but we haven’t had 10 guys. So we’ve doing a lot of 3-on-3, 4-on-4 — a lot of skill work — but it’s been fun. It’s been good.”
Alabama and Missouri are slated to tip off at 2:30 p.m. CT on Saturday. The game will be broadcast on SEC Network.
