Bama Basketball Breakdown: UNLV

Last night was a bit of a mixed bag for Alabama (3-2), as the 8th-ranked Crimson Tide showed a lot of fight in some areas, but fell completely flat in others in a 95-85 loss to the undefeated and twelfth-ranked Gonzaga Bulldogs on the opening day of the Players Era Festival. Labaron Philon put on an offensive showcase – although he had some bad turnovers that Nate Oats specifically called out in the postgame presser – but the rest of the team really didn’t play well on that end of the court. 9/29 from the arc and 14/23 from the free throw line simply isn’t going to cut it against a good team like Gonzaga. I thought the defensive gameplan was really sound – the doubles in the post were mostly effective, albeit sloppy at times – and the effort was certainly there. But woof, that frontcourt. There is a reason we had to aggressively double the low post. Bol Bowen was bad on defense. Keitenn Bristow was doing too much – he needs to stick to his role as a high-motor rebounder and defender. And the rebounding as a whole is just so bad.

Granted, Gonzaga is a great team and a bad matchup for Alabama – big, physical, and experienced. That’s a tough combo for anybody in November. Still, it’s not like the Tide is suddenly going to add a couple of big men between now and March. They are going to have to run-n-shoot teams like that. It’s become a familiar refrain during the Oats era. The 2023 team is still the only one Nate has had that could really compete with dominant post play and skilled bigs. Unfortunately, the two best teams early on for the SEC (besides the Tide, of course!) have been Florida and Tennessee, and last I checked, they aren’t exactly small squads.

Plenty of things to work on for Alabama still. That starts tonight with an extremely late tip in the desert.

How to Watch

What: Players Era Festival Day Two: #8 Alabama (3-2) vs UNLV (3-3)

Where: MGM Grand Garden Arena – Las Vegas, NV

When: 11:00 pm CT

TV: truTV

Line: Tide -13.5

The Runnin’ Rebs aren’t exactly the toughest team in the field in Vegas this weekend, but they are technically the home team. After a battle with the Zags, Alabama did kind of deserve some relief. The Players Era is a cool event, but it’s not really a traditional non-conference tournament a la the Maui Invitational. There are technically 18 teams competing in the event, and each team is only playing two games before a final pairing is set for the last day tomorrow. So, having already lost a game, the Tide is out of the running for the trophy and additional NIL payout. Still, it’d be nice to have another big-time test before taking a break for Thanksgiving. So, it’ll be important for Alabama to play well tonight, as margin of victory is the first tiebreaker amongst what will certainly be a slew of 1-1 teams, and Nate Oats’ guys are currently sitting at -10.

Three Keys to Victory

• Get the Secondary Scorers Going. I thought about just running back the “Move the Ball” key from yesterday, but this goes hand-in-hand with it. The ball is getting stuck a lot with Philon and Aden Holloway. Now, Labaron has been awesome, but we need to see the ball rotate a bit more than we have. UNLV is middle-of-the-road defensively, so this should be a good opportunity for the Tide to work on this without Philon and Holloway feeling like they have to score to keep us in the game. I’d like to see more driving-and-dishing than we’ve seen out of this group thus far (hopefully, Jalil Bathea will bring more of that when he makes his debut closer to conference play). Effective paint touches, in general, would be nice. Also, with Latrell Wrightsell being a late scratch for the week, it’s time to see who else can knock down some shots.

• Rebound. Not breaking any news here – Alabama has been pretty abhorrent on the glass thus far – 242nd in the country in OREB% and 245th in DREB%. UNLV is on the smaller side, as Josh Pastner’s squad doesn’t have anyone listed taller than 6’9 and the two that meet that description only play ~20 MPG. However, they do commit to offensive boards, as the Rebels are 49th in the country in OREB%. We need a full team buy-in to prevent UNLV from getting second chance points the way others have on the Tide in the early goings of this season.

• Defend without Fouling. UNLV does two things well – they hit the glass offensively and they get to the free throw line. In fact, they are elite at the latter – top ten in the country. So, while this isn’t the biggest group in the world, they are very physical. Alabama needs to be able to match that physicality without fouling. The Rebs are going to attack the paint all night, so denying dribble penetration and communicating on help defense is going to be critical.

Getting a quick break from the gauntlet that Alabama has faced recently will be greatly beneficial for the guys, I think. That’s not to say that UNLV is full of scrubs or anything, they are competent and even great in some areas, as I highlighted above. Still, this is an opportunity for the Tide to play a competitive game where they can focus on developing certain areas without feeling the stress of needing a basket or a stop on every possession, as has been the case the past four games. Hopefully, the late start won’t impact these young fellas tonight. I know I’ll be pouring up a coffee shortly before tip-off. Meet me back here once you’ve grabbed yours for the game thread.