Takeaways from Alabama Basketball's SEC Tournament Loss to Florida
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Alabama basketball's stay in the Music City was a quick one for the first time in Nate Oats' tenure, with the 3-seeded Crimson Tide falling 102-88 to 6-seed Florida in the quarterfinals on Friday night.
The loss was Alabama's fourth in six games, as the team has faded down the stretch after an incredibly strong first 3.5 months of the season.
Normally, I have three or so takeaways from each game, but after this one, there's really only two main thoughts I'm left with:
1. Again, the defense was dictated by the offense.
If Nate Oats had a list of most-used phrases throughout the 2023-24 season, this would all but certainly be at the top of the list: don't let your offensive success dictate your defensive effort.
He's said it time and time again, and still, it remains to be the biggest issue with this Alabama basketball team.
The Crimson Tide had an excellent start to the game from an energy and defensive effort standpoint. Alabama jumped out to an 8-0 lead, forcing Florida to call a quick timeout, and everything about the effort looked heightened to a level not normally seen from this team on defense.
But after a few more minutes went on, Alabama's offense slowed down a little bit. The 3-pointers didn't fall at the rate they usually do, and before you know it, the Crimson Tide was in a scoring drought.
Once that scoring drought started, frustrations built. When players on this team aren't seeing their shot go in, it discourages them, and it hinders their ability to dig in and get stops on defense.
The results continued to spiral, and it led to a nearly inconceivable 21-2 Florida run to close the half, putting the Gators up by 15. And at that point, it was over.
"Adversity happens," Oats said. "You miss a shot, ref misses a call, teammate misses you being open. I mean, you can see it. Intensity is not there on defense. Bad defensive possession, they score. We don't come back pushing the ball with pace on offense. Makes the next offensive possession harder. Just a snowball effect."
Oats perfectly described what he sees as a coach when the team falters defensively. What's possibly more alarming is his players' responses when they're asked about the defense.
"I don't know what it is. We started out great today. We really haven't been starting off great our last couple games," Alabama guard Aaron Estrada said. "I feel like we started out great today. Then they scored a little bit. We kind of folded from there every time. [...] I don't really know what happened, but I just feel like it died down as we were playing throughout the game."
Oats sees the issues, and can perfectly describe the root of them, but the disconnect seems to be the players being able to put the solution into action. It's not a simple fix either. It's a deeper issue of mental toughness, that this team has failed to reach an adequate level of time and again.
It was its undoing in pretty much all of its losses this year, and now Alabama is down to its final chance to fix things before the season ends.
2. All hope isn't lost for the NCAA Tournament.
With Alabama's run in the SEC Tournament now over, all that remains is the NCAA Tournament. That means that the next time Alabama loses a game, the 2024 season is over.
If that doesn't give you a sense of urgency, I don't know what will.
"We're going to have to try to get the attitudes back right, just change," Oats said. "We want to win, this is what we're going to have to focus on defense every possession. We're going to try to reiterate it for the next week. Whether we play Thursday or Friday of next week, we have to be ready to go right out of the gate."
The beautiful part about the NCAA Tournament is it's a fresh start for everyone. A clean slate. All 68 teams in the field have a record of 0-0.
Alabama hasn't finished the season on a strong note heading into the Big Dance, but that's happened before and teams have gone on runs. In 2017, South Carolina lost its first game of the SEC Tournament and went to the Final Four. It's not a death sentence, though it naturally doesn't instill a lot of confidence.
The good news, is Alabama has positioned itself well. It's likely going to be a 4-seed, which means a matchup with a 13-seed mid-major in the first round. A win in the first round, and that leaves a team playing an offense this talented on a 1-day scout, which would be difficult for any team in the country.
Depending on the draw, the path is there for Alabama to still get to the second weekend of the tournament, but in order to make that happen, it has to get more consistent efforts defensively.
Stop me if you've heard that before.
"We have a week to decide if they can guard for 40 minutes or not. If we can, we can make a deep run in the NCAA tournament," Oats said. "It's not for lack of quality defensive personnel, in my opinion. Obviously we're missing some guys here and there. We've got guys that are more than capable of being better than solid defenders. We don't have to be a top three defense in the country when we have a top three offense in the country."
Will this team have a change of mentality defensively, or do we already know what this team is? Though the latter may be likely, there's still a chance for this team to have a successful time in the NCAA Tournament.
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