Alabama men’s basketball head coach Nate Oats has not been afraid to call out the Crimson Tide’s struggles on the glass to start the season, and Monday night could be the ultimate test.
No. 11 Alabama will face No. 13 Gonzaga in its first contest of the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas. This NIL event debuted last year and the Tide reached the championship game. UA will need to defeat Gonzaga and UNLV on Tuesday to have a shot at the title, but the Bulldogs’ frontcourt could expose the Crimson Tide’s main weakness.
Gonzaga forwards Graham Ike and Braden Huff lead the team in points with a combined 31.8 per game. Huff attacks opponents down low offensively, while Ike averages 9.2 rebounds. Oats said on Sunday that he recently did a podcast with Houston head coach Kelvin Sampson, and the reigning national champion runner-up compared the duo to two members of the NBA 75th Anniversary team when he faced them in the second round of last year’s NCAA Tournament..
“He’s like, ‘You’ve got [Kevin] McHale and you got [Robert] Parrish.’ I mean, that’s a pretty good comparison, going back 40 years in the NBA. Arguably one of the best frontcourts in the history of basketball with the Celtics. For him to reference that [is a major statement].
“They can both go score. They both are going to demand double teams. When you have both of them, it’s like, Who do you put your best post defender on? Your second-best post defender in the game is going to have to guard somebody that’s better than almost every team’s best post scorer.
“They’ve got two of those guys, they can both go score, they both happen to be lefties, but they both got a little bit of nuance to their game that’s a little bit different. But man, they’re both really good.”
Ike and Huff are among multiple Gonzaga players who stand out defensively. The Bulldogs’ 57.8 points allowed per game ranks seventh in the country. This includes a dominant 90-63 win over Creighton, which was ranked at the time.
On the other hand, Alabama is up to 91 points per game offensively and has led the NCAA in scoring in each of the last two seasons. So, what does Oats see in the Bulldogs’ defense?
“They’re tough, physical, they’ve got a veteran group,” Oats said. “They’re older. Coach [Mark] Few is one of the best coaches in the country. Go look at the last 10-15 years in college basketball, like there hasn’t been anybody doing it at a higher level than what they’ve been doing it as. So I think the combination of coaching, veterans, experienced players, toughness, they’re good.
“[Creighton head coach Greg] McDermott’s one of the best offensive coaches in the last 15-20 years in college basketball himself. They obliterated Creighton in the second half, and that game was close. Within like four or five minutes, it was a blowout.”
With that in mind, Oats detailed what Alabama must do to maintain its offensive prowess in Las Vegas.
“We’ve got to turn them over a lot in that stretch,” Oats said. “Our guards have been doing a good job of not turning it over. We’ve got to continue to do a great job against some of their aggressive coverages. They’ve got some defensive playmakers. We’ve got to do a really good job taking care of the basketball and getting a quality shot up on every possession.”
Tipoff between No. 11 Alabama and No. 13 Gonzaga is set for Monday at 8:30 p.m. CT on TNT.