NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Mouhamed Diobuate hasn't forgotten the team meeting after the 2024 NCAA Tournament selection show. He and his Alabama teammates and coaches needed to create a message after the Crimson Tide limped into the Big Dance.
“Go hard or go home,” Doiubate said. “That was the message. ‘Go hard or go home.’”
Alabama got the message last year. Now it has to do so again after it experienced déjà vu with another blowout 104-82 defeat at the hands of Florida in the semifinals of the SEC Tournament Saturday. The defeat puts Alabama in the same position it found itself in last year, finishing 5-5 in its final 10 games and losing to the Gators before the NCAA Tournament.
“I would guess we'll be a 2-seed sent somewhere,” Alabama coach Nate Oats said after Saturday’s loss. “It will be set up for us to make a deep run again. We're going to have to do a little soul-searching, see how bad we want to make a deep run.”
Oats ripped his team for a lack of effort Saturday. The Tide looked flattened, particularly after star forward Grant Nelson went down with a left leg injury in the first half. Alabama was outscored 63-40 for the rest of the game. Instead of avenging a regular-season loss to the Gators, Alabama came out flat against a team, the caliber of which it will have to beat if it wants to make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament.
Alabama is a player-led team, according to Oats. And it's up to those players to decide how badly they want to make that run. Veterans like Mark Sears and Nelson remember what was said about their team after it was bounced by the Gators a year ago. Now, they'll be tasked with setting the same tone for a response heading into the postseason after this year’s group matched last year’s results.
“I feel like we had people calling us frail, Nelson recalled. “Charles Barkley called us frail. Everybody counted us out and we knew how good we were. We knew how good our offense was last year and the potential our defense could have, and I think we showed that in the tournament, how much our defense got better, and that’s really what sparked our run.”
Alabama's improved defense has carried over to this season and put the Tide in position to get a higher seed in this year’s tournament. Alabama was excellent defensively at the end of the regular season against the likes of Tennessee and Auburn — two teams that also have the potential to reach the Final Four. Alabama's loaded roster has helped the Tide stay near the top of the SEC standings. but Oats is calling for his group to match its elite talent with the kind of grit that took Alabama to new heights a year ago.
“We're going to face a little adversity in the NCAA tournament,” Oats said. “Go back to last year second round, playing Grand Canyon,” Oats said. “They're good. They're tough. Things weren't going well. Dioubate came in, changed the entire trajectory of the game. Dang-near won the game for us. We're going to have to have multiple guys that are capable of changing the trajectory of the game to making us the toughest, hardest-playing group on the floor.”
Oats has issued the challenge to his players. Now it’s up to them to meet it. Those who were on the team last year have experience with using Alabama’s SEC Tournament defeat as motivation. This time around, it's up to the likes of Sears and Nelson to lead their teammates to regenerate some of the positive on-court trends that have allowed the Tide to compete with the best when it's playing at its best on both ends.
For younger players who were part of the Final Four run, like Dioubate and Jarin Stevenson, motivation can come from playing for their elder teammates. The careers of Sears, Nelson, Clifford Omoruyi and Chris Youngblood will all come to an end whenever Alabama finishes NCAA Tournament play. Those following in their footsteps beyond this season are determined to make sure they’re doing what they can to extend the careers of their older teammates.
“[I'm] even more motivated because we’ve got more fifth-year guys this year than we did last year, and we understand that it's their last year and they understand that as well," Diobuate said. "So hopefully, it all just clicks at one time.”
Alabama will find out its NCAA Tournament fate during the NCAA Tournament bracket reveal show. The broadcast will air live at 5 p.m. CT Sunday on CBS. What Alabama does from there will come down to how it can equal its response to some late season adversity and rally to play its best basketball at the most important time of the season.
“Our leaders are going to come together, get everybody together," Stevenson said. "Again, we’ve got to regroup, re-evaluate, see what we did wrong. Take things that we did in different wins and see what we can do. Take from those games as well and go from there."
