TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Last week Alabama basketball coach Nate Oats spoke about the importance of momentum heading into this week’s SEC Tournament. Back-to-back losses to Vanderbilt and Missouri have provided the Crimson Tide with anything but that.
Alabama (16-15, 8-10 in the SEC) will instead head to Nashville, Tenn., knowing that its only shot of making the NCAA Tournament hinges on an improbable four-game run capped off by a conference tournament title. That dubious journey begins Thursday at noon CT when the No. 9 seed Crimson Tide takes on No. 8 seed Tennessee (17-14, 9-9).
“Now it’s just let’s get back to playing as good of basketball as we can get,” Oats said. “Obviously, the last two games were not our best basketball. You’d like to be playing your best basketball come the SEC Tournament. We weren’t. Obviously, there’s numerous reasons.”
Alabama was without John Petty Jr. for its home loss to last-place Vanderbilt. The junior guard was able to return for the defeat at Missouri but tallied just 1 point on 0-for-5 shooting from the floor. Oats said Petty, who earned second-team All-SEC honors on Tuesday, has “looked a lot better” in practice and should offer an improved performance come Thursday.
Then again, Petty is hardly the only Crimson Tide player in need of finding his stroke from the floor. Alabama, which ranks No. 3 in the nation averaging 82 points per game, put up a season-worst 50 points in its latest loss to Missouri, shooting a season-low 30.4 percent from the floor and 16 percent from beyond the arc.
“Kind of flush that one,” Oats said. “Let’s move on.”
Tennessee doesn’t bring back the fondest of memories either. The Volunteers beat the Crimson Tide, 69-68, in Tuscaloosa last month in a game where Alabama blew a 15-point lead in the first half. Playing without Herbert Jones, Alabama allowed Tennessee to dominate the boards in the second half as the Volunteers pulled in 24 rebounds including 10 on the offensive end which led to 16 second-chance points.
Jones, who was named to the SEC All-Defensive team, has since returned from a fractured wrist and will be available for Thursday’s game. That should help the Crimson Tide fare better against a Tennessee lineup that features an intimidating frontcourt in Yves Pons and John Fulkerson.
Pons was named the SEC’s Defensive Player of the Year and leads the conference averaging 2.4 blocks per game. Fulkerson ranks second in the SEC in field goal percentage (61.2 percent) and also leads Tennessee in scoring (13.7 points per game), rebounding (5.9 per game) and steals (1.1 per game). During last month’s game against Alabama, Fulkerson tallied a game-high 22 points while Pons recorded 14 points and 14 rebounds.
“We didn’t have Herb at the time, so we were playing Petty a lot at the 4,” Oats said. “They took advantage of that with Pons… I think he’s the best athlete in the league. It was a tough matchup trying to put Petty on him, and they also were able to get the ball deep, drop it into (Fulkerson). Fulkerson’s good, I mean he’s one of the best bigs in our league. You look at what they’ve done over their last three games and they beat two really good teams in this league, and he put up big, big numbers in those games.”
If Alabama does get past Tennessee it will earn a quarterfinals date with No. 1 seed Kentucky on Friday at noon. While a championship run might seem unlikely at the moment, Oats expressed optimism in his team’s ability to compete with anyone despite the lack of momentum heading into the tournament.
“There’s been plenty of people that have lost their last game or two and went in and won a conference tournament, played well, get it back together,” Oats said. “If you look at the tournament seeding, Kentucky’s 1, we got them on the road, and it was a one- or two-possession game with a minute to go. We beat the 2, 3 and 4 seeds — Auburn, LSU and Mississippi State. Florida’s a 5 — we were up 21 at their place, lost in double overtime.
"So we’ve really proven we can play with the top teams in this league. We just got to go in, get back playing our best basketball. I think the guys’ mindsets have been right. Got to get confidence back shooting the ball, get the ball moving a bit more on offense and see if we can’t make some noise here in Nashville.”
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Andrew Bone, of BamaInsider.com, is a real estate broker in the state of Alabama.
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