HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — The result of Alabama basketball’s exhibition game against Memphis doesn’t matter for the Crimson Tide’s record this season. The 96-88 scoreline will be nothing more than a footnote if Alabama lives up to its potential. .
But the Crimson Tide’s foul-laden, lackluster second-half performance against Memphis could prove to be a key learning moment for a team with extremely high expectations. After looking like the team it’s poised to be in the first half, Alabama nearly blew a 20-point advantage, getting outscored 59-47 in the second half by a physical and aggressive Memphis team that also forced 20 Tide turnovers, outrebounded Alabama 51-42 and outscored the Tide 54-30 in the paint.
“There’s a reason we play the exhibitions so that we can get exposed a little bit on what we’ve gotta work on and we definitely got exposed tonight a little bit,” Alabama coach Nate Oats said after the game. “I thought our turnovers were not where we needed to be. We’ve got to do a better job taking care of the ball. Our defensive rebounding, our transition defense they exposed in a bad way. They got all over the offensive boards. They had 23 O-boards, kinda came from everywhere too. And our transition — shoot, 36 fast break points is not good. So we’ve got a lot of work to do before the regular season.”
Oats was honest in his assessment. The Crimson Tide got complacent after showing it was a much more talented team in the first half. While Monday night’s result comes with no record implications or NCAA Tournament seeding consequences, Memphis nearly made Alabama learn the hard way that it can’t afford to switch off no matter how much it imposes its will on its opponents this season.
“We’ve talked about this as a team, the efficiency numbers matter,” Oats said. “When you’re playing for tournament seeding your defensive efficiency wherever the possession comes in the course of the game no matter what your lead is, they’re all the same. So it doesn’t matter whether you’re up 20, up 10, first possession of the game, tied game with two minutes to go. They should all be played with the appropriate intensity. Our defensive efficiency numbers were not good last year. We’re trying to fix all that this year. So you can’t take possessions off if you’re up 20 to get your efficiency numbers fixed.”
Alabama is going to be in games, even against premier competition, where it has leads like it did at halftime Monday. Despite its sloppy second half, the Tide still scored 96 points Saturday even without two projected starters in Grant Nelson and Latrell Wrightsell Jr. The talent of its newcomers has already shown while its returning players bring a wealth of experience and talent that should give many teams fits this season.
Memphis won’t be the first physical team Alabama matches up against. But Monday’s game showed the Tide it can’t let up in that department as it continues preparing to play some of the best teams in college basketball. Alabama’s season tips off against UNC Asheville on Nov. 4 and the stakes and only go up from there.
“I think was really good to play a team like that because we’re going to have to play Houston yet, play Tennessee yet,” Oats said of Memphis. “I don’t think we did a very good job handling the physicality most of the game, to be honest with you. That’s why we ended up with 20 turnovers. We’re going to have to be a lot better before we play some of these physical, more aggressive teams coming up.”
