The KenPom Numbers I'll Be Watching for Alabama This Season

I love KenPom.

I've always been something of a basketball nerd, and am very much in the target audience of Ken Pomeroy's revolutionary analytics platform. I routinely pore through numbers, spending hours comparing teams and players, both in advance of matchups to predict games and afterwards to see the correlation between season-long trends and the on-court results.

Few programs are more fun to follow analytically than Alabama. Nate Oats' breakneck, rim-and-three scheme creates some fascinating numbers for the Crimson Tide, which regularly ranks near the top of the nation in metrics like adjusted tempo (more on that below). Oats uses analytics as much as any coach in the nation, so why shouldn't we try to follow them to the best of our ability? In this article, I'll highlight three KenPom figures that I believe are relevant for Alabama's season, which begins on Tuesday against Sam Houston State.

This will be a relatively surface-level overview, looking at some of the essential, need-to-know numbers to set the stage for the season. Once games get underway, we are going to use the site to do a deep dive on one trend from Alabama's season every week, evaluating the good and bad from the Crimson Tide as it unfolds.

Adjusted Tempo (AdjT)

2025-26: 72.9, No. 4 nationally

This is one of the most cited Alabama KenPom numbers, as it highlights the absurdity of the team's pace. Alabama has ranked in the top five in three of the past four seasons and finished No. 1 in 2025. But what does it mean?

Adjusted tempo measures the average number of possessions a team plays per 40 minutes, corrected for the tempo of the opponents they face. It features the following equation to determine possessions per game:

Field goals attempted - offensive rebounds + turnovers + 0.475 x free throws attempted

It essentially reveals how fast a team plays, and for Alabama, the answer has been exactly what we would expect. There is no reason to think this will change. I expect to see the Crimson Tide rank even higher than last year due to the loss of Labaron Philon, whose half-court proficiency and lethal mid-range jumper absolutely boosted the Alabama offense, but also slowed it down.

Three-Point Attempt Percentage (3PA%)

2025-26: 54.3%, No. 1 nationally

This one is pretty cut-and-dry. It measures what percentage of a team's shots are three-pointers. Entering last season, just two power-conference teams had taken more than 50 percent of their shots from beyond the arc in the last decade: 2023-24 BYU and 2018-19 Villanova. That number exploded as there were six such cases of it last year, with Alabama at the top of the list.

Alabama ranked in the top 20 in this metric from 2020 through 2024, before dropping all the way to No. 35 in 2024-25. Each of those teams took at least 45 percent of its shots from distance, but there is a massive difference between the numbers from those six seasons and last year.

So, which end does Alabama land on this season? I'd lean toward the lower side.

Amari Allen plays his best basketball inside the arc, and while he will need to show improved three-point shooting for his draft stock, the Crimson Tide's taller roster will mean that he consistently has smaller defenders on him this season compared to last. There is an abundance of slashing wings on the roster, suggesting a lot of drives to the basket by players who may not be the most adept at kicking out.

Oats already criticized the ball movement in the team's 87-85 exhibition win over Auburn.

"In order to get to catch-and-shoot, you've got to get the ball moving," Oats said. "You've got to create an advantage, force a second guy on the ball or a third guy into an action, you know, two-man action, ball man, swing it, either shoot it or kick it out, swing it one more time. I think the point, we call them blender clips, where we get the opponent in the blender, and we had one in the second half...

"I thought we had way too many guys that had the ball in their hands that maybe were trying to create for themselves tonight, that the ball just didn't get moving. So we've got to get the ball moving a lot better. It's going to be a huge point of emphasis."

Elite ball movement creates open threes, which boosts 3PA%. Alabama had that last year. I don't know that it will this season.

On the other hand, Philon had the green light from mid-range last season, and with him gone, that's a significant percentage of Alabama's two-point attempts that will need to be replaced. Essentially, we can expect Alabama to return to being the true rim-and-three offense we are used to seeing under Oats. This year's roster may be as stereotypical of an Oats offense as we've seen.

Steal Percentage (Stl%)

2025-26: 9.8%, No. 247 nationally

This metric measures the percentage of opponent team possessions that end with a steal by an Alabama player. This number is always going to be on the lower end in this system, as Alabama typically plays extreme drop coverage that sacrifices potential turnovers in favor of avoiding giving up easy looks in the paint.

But the reason I am highlighting this number is the improved athleticism of the roster. The system is not going to change, but the individual ability of Alabama's defenders to create havoc very well may. Jaxson Richardson, Qayden Samuels, and Tarris Bouie need to be the catalysts here — how often can they poke balls free and deflect passes?

This number has a direct impact on the other two we highlighted. A steal creates a transition opportunity, which creates even faster offense, which increases the tempo of the game. Expect noticeable improvement.

No metric exists in a vacuum, and this season, I am going to pull from a variety of figures to evaluate Alabama. Each week, I'll pick one trend, back it up with film, and take what I find to Oats at the team’s press conferences to get his read on what’s working and what needs to improve. Last season’s numbers were elite. This season, we’ll find out whether a new look offense with improved size is able to replace last year's superstar and continue the golden age of Alabama basketball.

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