The Extra Point: Is Alabama Basketball's Extensive Roster Turnover Good or Bad?

Since losing in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, Alabama basketball has had five scholarship players from last year's team enter the transfer portal.

Author:
Clay Miller
Publish date:
Apr 22, 2022 4:00 PM EDT

In this story:

Alabama Crimson Tide

In the new era of the transfer portal and NIL, significant roster turnover has become normal in the world of college sports even amongst the most successful teams.

After a season in which the Alabama basketball team made it to the NCAA Tournament, five scholarship players and seven total decided to leave the program and enter the transfer portal. That's not to mention the players that were lost to graduation or declaring early for the NBA Draft.

There's no doubt this amount of roster turnover is significant for the Crimson Tide and will cause a lot of change before next season. Most of the time when a program loses this many players it is considered a negative thing, but in Alabama's circumstance, that is debatable.

The inconsistencies of this past season's Alabama team were well-chronicled to the point of nauseam. The team proved it could beat top teams like Gonzaga, Baylor, and Houston but also lost consistently to teams that on paper were much worse than the Crimson Tide.

While the roster was full of talent and the season had a lot of bright moments, it never seemed like head coach Nate Oats could get all of the pieces to fit together and several of the players seemed to struggle playing in his system.

With that in mind, the losses of players such as Juwan Gary, Jusaun Holt, and James Rojas may be more of a sign that they could be a better fit in another program than there is a problem within the Crimson Tide's.

While the Crimson Tide have a lot of players leaving, they also have a lot of talent coming in. According to 247Sports, Alabama has the No. 3 recruiting class in the country coming to Tuscaloosa including two five-star players in Jaden Bradley and Brandon Miller.

They also added Mark Sears, a dynamic point guard, from the transfer portal who will look to make an immediate impact and has the skillset to excel in Alabama's system.

So, when considering whether the roster turnover is good or bad, the answer will all depend on how next year's newcomers are able to gel together. Either way, expect a lot of new faces next year on an Alabama team that will be looking to improve on this year's first round exit from the NCAA Tournament.

Check out the video at the top of the page where BamaCentral's Clay Miller and Tony Tsoukalas discuss the significance of Alabama basketball's roster turnover.