Nate Oats, Herb Jones Grade Alabama's Performance Against Iona
INDIANAPOLIS — It was a nail-biter of a victory for No. 2-seed Alabama basketball on Saturday afternoon inside Hinkle Fieldhouse on the campus of Butler University.
After jumping out early to a 22-14 lead against the No. 15-seed Iona Gaels in the first round of the NCAA tournament, the Crimson Tide soon found themselves up by only one point at halftime. Alabama dominated the boards, but Iona’s defense came to play.
While the Crimson Tide ultimately pulled away in the final minutes and won 68-55, the game was still not the easy win that many Alabama fans thought that they would see in the tournament’s opening round.
After the game, Alabama senior wing Herbert Jones said that he would give his team’s effort a rather average grade.
“I'd give ourselves a C,” Jones said. “We didn't come out, you know, defensively we didn't come out, I don't think we came out how we should have. We didn't make a lot of shots. But the effort was — I give the effort an A. Our overall performance I think was a C.”
Jones’ personal performance was worth a higher grade than that. The senior led the Crimson Tide in points with 20 and also wrangled in six rebounds and three steals. While senior guard John Petty Jr. won the team’s highly-coveted hard-hat award, it was Jones that was the primary driver in the game.
However, one individual’s performance doesn’t make the team.
Overall, Alabama shot just 47-percent form the floor and 31-percent from beyond the arc. From the free-throw line, the Crimson Tide made just 13 of its 23 free-throw attempts. Alabama did dominate the boards by a margin of 42-26 but was only able to get 12 second-chance points from those offensive rebounds.
Alabama head coach Nate Oats — who used to be a math teacher before joining the coaching ranks of college basketball — said he would give Alabama a worse grade than Jones did.
"He's generous," Oats said. "C means average. It's definitely not our average. Again, Iona came with a great plan, did a good job."
He then went on to explain how he would grade Saturday's performance:
"Look, defensively give us a B," Oats said. "Offensively we're probably a D. Maybe put the two of them together, maybe call it a C. Defensively in the second half we were pretty close — we were really good. What was our second half defense? It was pretty good. I thought I got our analytics box score now. We were .79 in the second half before they called it analytically final there with a minute 14 to go.
"I thought defensively that's pretty good. A-minus/B-plus on defense. Offense we were not very good."
Alabama now prepares for an opponent that will no doubt prove to be more difficult than the 15-seeded Gaels. Up next, the Crimson Tide will have to face either the No. 7-seed Connecticut or No. 10-seed Maryland on Monday.
