Crimson Red Sports

WEAKNESSES

▪ Alabama has not been good at valuing the basketball this season. The Crimson Tide turn it over on nearly a fourth of their possessions and rank 312th out of 353 teams with a 23.8 turnover percentage. Three players average four turnovers or more per game.

The Crimson Tide are also ranked 351st in offensive steal percentage, meaning opponents force steals on 14.8 percent of the Crimson Tide’s possessions. While UNC has not been great at forcing steals, this could be an opportunity for the Tar Heels to get some easy points in transition.

▪ Defensively, the Crimson Tide are well below average at forcing turnovers. Alabama has forced turnovers on only 15.1 percent of its opponent’s possessions, which is ranked 327th in the country.

The Alabama basketball practice gym is littered with lines of blue painter’s tape. While first-year head coach Nate Oats isn’t planning on making any in-season touchups to the floor, he would like to better illustrate how he wants his players to see the court.

During practice, that process includes a series of zones and boundaries drawn to better accustom his team to his style of play.

Alabama men’s basketball head coach Nate Oats officially announced the addition of one of the top players at his position with the signing of 6-8, 200-pound forward Keon Ambrose-Hylton on Tuesday afternoon.

A native of Toronto, Ontario, Ambrose-Hylton is a consensus four-star signee who is rated as high as the No. 58 overall player according to ESPN. Additionally, the athletic and versatile forward is ranked as the No. 2 player in Canada’s entire 2020 class.

Alabama is off to a worse than expected start. I thought we would start the season 4-0 but we lost a nail biter to Penn at home and to Rhode Island on the road. 2-2 during this stretch is not good. We now have a three games in three days against elite teams. We open with North Carolina. We must win one of these games. Two wins would exceed expectations. This schedule, while challenging, will prepare us for the SEC. We have had several days off since we beat Furman. I hope Coach Oats has used this time to get our team ready for this high profile tournament.

I thought we would start 3-1 mainly because Rhode Island returned most of their starters and playing in the Tourney in 2017 & 2018. I knew Penn would be tough since their program has been good historically good at BB. You’re right, playing this early schedule should help the players learn some things and use them in SEC play. Hope you read the article about how Oats was practicing with the players now. Very interesting stuff.