How Alabama Basketball Prepared for March Madness Back in December

The Crimson Tide played one of the toughest non-conference schedules in the country early in the season, but it's paying off in March.

LOS ANGELES — Alabama basketball is still playing deep into the month of March, as deep as its been playing in the NCAA Tournament in program history.

Making the second Elite Eight in the history of Alabama basketball is impressive in its own right, but many would have been shocked if you told them this team would be here back in December.

Towards the end of the 2023 calendar year, about a month and a half into the season, Alabama sat with a disappointing 6-5 record. The Crimson Tide was in the midst of a 3-game losing streak against one of the most difficult 3-game runs of any college basketball schedule this year: playing Purdue in Toronto, playing Creighton on the road, and then playing Arizona in Phoenix.

While Alabama went 0-3 in those games, but held second half leads of at least seven points in all three losses. Now in the Elite Eight, the Alabama team feels those losses gave it lessons to learn from in order to improve over the course of the season.

“That helped us prepare for where we are right now," guard Mark Sears said. "If we didn’t play that schedule we wouldn’t be here. We started out 6-5, didn’t want the outcome we had early on. But that road trip prepared us for what we’re doing now. [...] “I knew we were very capable of doing this because we played tough games on the road back-to-back-to-back. Nobody in the country did that.”

Sears is right, that was probably the most difficult stretch of three games in the sport, and Alabama also played non-conference games against Clemson and Oregon, two NCAA Tournament teams, one of which it's getting ready to face in the Elite Eight. According to KenPom, Alabama had the 16th-toughest non-conference schedule of any team in America, and the third-toughest among high-major programs.

“Those games we came up short in, Coach always talks about our percentage of winning those games," forward Nick Pringle said. "We let one or two things happen that allowed us not to. So just taking those, learning from them. It’s been great to see us take learned lessons from previously in the season and apply them to where we’re at now.”

Since those early-season losses where Alabama gave away leads, the Crimson Tide has been excellent in close games. Alabama is 7-1 since non-conference play ended in games decided by single-digit points, including multiple overtime wins and multiple comebacks of double-digit deficits.

“We’re very comfortable in those close game situations. I feel like we handled them well last game, and going forward I feel like we’re very prepared," Sears said.

Sam Walters, a freshman whose playing time has seen ups and downs throughout the season, attributes a lot of Alabama's late-game success to its leaders, but also thinks his own class has grown up throughout the season.

“I think we have good veteran guys," Walters said. "But the other freshmen, we’ve been playing in close games, so I feel like we’re almost like sophomores now. Now that we have a lot of experience.”

Additionally, that run of games back in December featured three of the best big men in the country in Purdue's Zach Edey, Creighton's Ryan Kalkbrenner, and Arizona's Oumar Ballo.

"We played some of the best bigs in the nation, so I feel like it prepared us for guys like PJ Hall and their other bigs," forward Grant Nelson said.

Now, Alabama is coming off a game where it took what it learned playing those all-conference-level bigs and applied it to slow down North Carolina's Armando Bacot in the second half, earning a rematch with Clemson center PJ Hall, who had his way with Alabama in the first meeting between the two teams.

From the personnel of opponents, to learning how to close games, even to playing in more difficult environments, every game Alabama played and every loss it took before the new year has led it to this game.

“We’ve already played in an NBA arena this year when we played Arizona," Walters said. "Playing big environments like that in non-conference, playing Creighton, playing against Arizona, I think it has prepared us to play in big games like this.”

Now, the biggest game of them all awaits, with a trip to the Final Four on the line, as Alabama looks to continue reaping what it sowed in the non-conference slate.