Alabama Athletics
Alabama Basketball Seeks to Keep Momentum Moving Forward After Big Week
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — After a decade riddled with letdown losses, Alabama basketball defeated Missouri on Saturday afternoon to avoid its first potential letdown of 2020.
This past week was a historic one for the Crimson Tide, and has vaulted the team onto the map as one to look out for as Southeastern Conference play continues.
On Wednesday, Alabama stoutly defeated No. 4 Auburn, 83-64.
From the get-go, first-year head coach Nate Oats addressed the potential for a letdown loss following maybe the program's biggest win in nearly a decade.
"Yeah I definitely think that's something real," Oats said. "I mean you get all-up for a game [and] if you're not mature enough or don't handle the success well enough you'll definitely have a letdown the next game. I really addressed it the night of the game — yesterday, today — we'll be addressing it again tomorrow make sure our energy's up. We gotta make sure we're not still living on past success.
"If you come in and lose to Missouri then the Auburn game really didn't mean that much. If you're 2-3 in the league then we'll be behind the eight ball. We gotta come in playing well."
Just three days after Alabama's big win, the Crimson Tide took care of the Tigers in Coleman Coliseum, 88-74. Even though Missouri went a perfect 31-for-31 from the free-throw line — something that's never been done before in SEC history — the Crimson Tie still won going away.
Keep in mind Missouri soundly beat Florida, which Alabama lost to in double-overtime after having a 21-point lead at the turn of the new year.
Oats' determination to not fall in a letdown game has rubbed off on his players, as evidenced by Kira Lewis, Jr. The sophomore guard didn't dwell on the Auburn win for very long.
"You just come in the next game and work hard towards your opponent," Lewis said. "Just build off what you did in the last game. You don't look at is as much but you see what you did in the last game to prepare for the game and take the mistakes that you learned and prepare them for the next game."
Saturday's win over Missouri meant more than just a win. It showed that the team has a different mindset and approach under Oats.
Alabama's record improved to 10-7, 3-2 in conference play. While the Crimson Tide does have those seven losses, there is one glaring thing to note: Alabama has lost back-to-back games only once so far this season.
They came at the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament in the Bahamas, which saw Alabama lose to North Carolina and Iowa State in consecutive days.
Oats inherited a program that was well-known for stringing together unnecessary losses, particularly after big wins. For example, under former head coach Avery Johnson the Crimson Tide had four separate losing streaks, with two of them being three games, during the 2018-2019 season.
Three of those four losing streaks came after grinding wins for Alabama. First and foremost was Alabama's win over Kentucky on Jan. 5 last year. After the big win, the Crimson Tide proceeded to drop two-consecutive games to both LSU and Texas A&M.
A month later, Alabama had a hard-fought win in Memorial Gymnasium against Vanderbilt. The Crimson Tide has a tough history in the gym, so being able to beat the Commodores there was a noteworthy achievement. However, Alabama was subsequently thumped in its next three games: at Mississippi State, vs Florida, and once again against Texas A&M.
Finally, a big win against a strong South Carolina team in Columbia dealt Alabama its final three-game streak to close out the season. The Crimson Tide ended the year by losing at home to LSU and Auburn, then on the road against Arkansas.
"You have to handle success well," Oats said. "We talked to [the team]. To me it's a lot harder to handle success than it is to handle failure. When you get beat you come in with a chip on your shoulder ready to fight. A lot of teams can get beat and come back, play well and get a win. It's hard to win, come back even better and play even harder and know you got to still improve and when you win, win again. We're trying to instill that here.
"I think we've shown we can come back after tough losses. I mean we came back after losing a tough one at Florida and played well against Mississippi State. So we're really maturing if we can follow up a great win against Auburn with a great performance against Missouri."
This week, Alabama is heading back to troublesome Memorial Gymnasium on Wednesday (8 p.m. CT, SEC Network). The Commodores are 44-19 against the Crimson Tide in their home stadium.
Momentum is on Alabama's side, though. Including the back-to-back wins last week, the Crimson Tide is 8-3 since the back-to-back losses in the Bahamas.
Alabama graduate-student guard James 'Beetle' Bolden reiterated that a letdown loss is not on the Crimson Tide's itinerary and that his team has a plan for success.
"Just not let a win like Auburn get to our head," Bolden said. "Just stay level-headed, be mature about it and just continue to trust coach Oats' plan and then take it game by game and hopefully we just start putting together wins."
