Happy Friday, everyone. Would you like to relive Alabama’s historic three point shooting night?
Of course you would. Enjoy.
The Tide will be playing late on Saturday.
No. 2 seed Alabama men’s basketball will face No. 1 seed Duke in the Elite Eight at 7:49 p.m. CT on Saturday in Newark, N.J., CBS announced for the upcoming March Madness slate.
The game will be broadcast on either TBS or truTV. Brian Anderson, Jim Jackson and Allie LaForce will be on the call again.
The Crimson Tide just beat No. 6 seed BYU in the Sweet 16. Duke beat No. 4 seed Arizona to make it to the Elite Eight.
Plenty of folks have asked why the East game is later than the West game played on the same night. Quite simply, people will stay up to watch Cooper Flagg vs the nation’s highest scoring offense, so they put Florida vs Texas Tech in the favorable time slot.
Nate Oats couldn’t possibly have predicted that kind of barrage, but he had a good feeling about the matchup after watching film.
“They had been going under ball screens just about every game we watched,” Oats said on Friday. “I told both those guys, Holloway and Sears, ‘Man, I hope they go under us because we’re going to rain them.
“So we were in the gym last night, the night before. These guys show up for voluntary shooting every time it’s available to make sure that they’re ready to go, and that work pays off. We want to base our program on hard work.
“BYU with their personnel, we knew that once they started going under — they always collapse. They kind of have to. They got away with it against some teams that don’t space like we do. But I told these guys going in, if you move the ball — we end up with 27 assists. I’m not sure that ranks in tournament history. But if you’ll move the ball, our offense is designed to beat a defense like this.”
Holloway and Sears combined to go 16/29 from three on the night. That’s pretty decent.
Alabama has proven that it can score in multiple ways.
Alabama opened with six 3-pointers in the first seven minutes and had 12 made 3s with just under five minutes left in the first half. BYU was matching the Tide shot-for-shot in the first half, with both teams making 17 field goals in the first 20 minutes.
The problem for BYU was that 12 of Alabama’s field goals were from 3, while the Cougars were just 1-for-13 from behind the arc. For a team that ranked in the top 10 nationally in 3-pointers per game, at 10.6 per game, it was a concern.
Meanwhile, Alabama was basically doing the opposite of what had brought the Tide success in their first two wins of the NCAA tournament. Through the first weekend, Alabama had more points in the paint than any team in the field, making a combined 50 2-pointers in wins over Robert Morris and Saint Mary’s.
Against BYU on Thursday, the Crimson Tide made just 10 shots inside the arc.
Al dot com has some portal names to watch, and one seems like destiny.
Adrian Wooley, Kennesaw State
This one doesn’t require much detective work to connect the dots. Wooley is a Tuscaloosa native who played for former Alabama assistant and player Antoine Pettway with the Owls. Wooley’s a 6-5, 180 pound guard heading into his sophomore season. He averaged 18.8 points, 5.2 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 33.5 minutes per game with 32 starts. He made 42.2% of his shot attempts from beyond the arc.
Alabama doesn’t have to do much digging to learn about him. But the Crimson Tide will likely have plenty of competitors for his services.
Hmmm, a local product, left-handed guard who shoots a high percentage of threes for volume and has multiple years of eligibility left? Sounds familiar.
Last, Kalen DeBoer explained the decision to have a practice in place of the A Day scrimmage.
The demise of spring games has been a trend across the sport this offseason. Some schools have cited transfer portal concerns, and not wanting to put players on tape before the spring window opens.
DeBoer said that’s not high on his list of reasons for not holding a traditional game.
“It’s really, to me, not even about the portal concern that I know everyone makes it out to be,” DeBoer said. “It’s just that we’re really out there. We ran a lot of reps (Thursday), but we were very specific and sometimes you almost had to stop things to get the right groups of people, matchups and things like that, to have a quality rep for all 22 guys that are on the football field. That practice-type environment is something that I think best accomplishes both things for the fans that we want to do with the A-Day, and also for our football team to utilize a practice.”
Spring football just isn’t a thing anymore.
Sad.
That’s about it for today. Have a great weekend.
Roll Tide.
