Three things to watch for in Alabama basketball's charity exhibition

Alabama basketball will wrap up its preseason slate today as it takes on Southern Illinois in a charity exhibition at 2 p.m. CT inside Foster Auditorium. The exhibition comes after the Crimson Tide suffered a 99-66 defeat to TCU in a closed scrimmage in Fort Worth, Texas on Oct. 16. Alabama will open its regular season against Longwood on Nov. 7 inside Coleman Coliseum.

Today’s exhibition will not be televised and will be made public exclusively to Alabama students. Tide Illustrated will have coverage of the event and will provide live updates on the Coleman Crazies message board.

Here are three things we are looking to learn about the team before the start of the season.

Following their blowout loss to TCU, Alabama players held a players-only meeting to go over what needed to be fixed moving forward. One of the topics brought up by returning forwards Noah Gurley and Charles Bediako during last week’s SEC Media Days was addressing complacency on the team.

Alabama opened last season with an 8-1 record, including wins over No. 3 Gonzaga and No. 14 Houston, before stumbling to a 19-14 record with a first-round loss to Notre Dame in the NCAA Tournament.

The Crimson Tide returns five scholarship players from last year’s team including starters Charles Bediako, Jahvon Quinerly and Noah Gurley as well as a role player off the bench in Darius Miles and five-star Texas Tech transfer Nimari Burnett, who missed the season with a knee injury. Alabama brought in seven new players including transfers Mark Sears (Ohio) and Dom Welch (St. Bonaventure) as well as signees Jaden Bradley, Noah Clowney, Rylan Griffen, Brandon Miller and Nick Pringle.

Despite the disappointing loss TCU, that bunch seems to have its head in the right place heading into the season.

"Since I’ve been here, I just feel like everybody’s bought into one goal,” Pringle said Thursday. “That’s great. Complacency is not something I see on this team. I just feel like everybody’s on the same page. We’ve got a lot of leaders. We’ve got a lot of older guys. We have some younger guys who are leaders as well. I feel like we’re all pushing in the right direction.”

The outcome of today’s scrimmage might not matter in the long run, but how Alabama responds to its loss to TCU will have a lot to say about its mental makeup heading into the games that do count.

“A successful charity exhibition, to me, would be that we get better,” Nate Oats said Thursday. “Obviously, I don’t wanna lose the scrimmage and the exhibition both. I don’t think that would be good for confidence, issues, all that. We’re definitely going in to win the game. But I’m gonna play everybody. Provided we have a good practice [Friday] and everybody does what they’re supposed to, everybody’s gonna play. We’re gonna give guys a chance to get better.”

Alabama will be without its starting center for the scrimmage as Charles Bediako is still out with an injury. Thursday, Oats provided an update on the sophomore, stating that the team hopes to have him participating in some drills next week in order to get him ready for the season opener.

With Bediako out, the scrimmage should provide a look at the Crimson Tide’s depth in the frontcourt. Gurley returns after averaging 6.8 points and 3.5 rebounds over 18 minutes a game last season. While the graduate student figures to be Alabama’s main man down low during Bediako’s absence, both of the Crimson Tide’s incoming bigs offer intriguing potential.

Clowney joins the team as the No. 71 overall player in this year’s class. The 6-foot-10, 210-pound forward has had an impressive offseason so far, averaging 12.3 points and seven rebounds during Alabama’s European tour, including an 11-point, 10-rebound game against the Chinese National Team.

“He’s a smart kid,” Oats said. “Those types of kids can improve quickly because you can give them a lot and they can take it in and you can keep giving them more. We knew he was a really good athlete. He’s probably a better athlete than we thought when we recruited him.”

Pringle came to Alabama as one of the top JUCO prospects in the nation. Last season, he averaged 9.2 points and 8.9 rebounds while shooting 61.8% from the floor for Dodge City (Kan.) Community College.

Miller is undoubtedly the headliner for today’s scrimmage. The five-star freshman is the prize of Alabama’s recruiting class, joining the team as the No. 17 player in the nation. He’s already off to a blazing start for the Crimson Tide, averaging 22 points during the European tour before leading the team with 33 points to go with nine rebounds in the scrimmage loss to TCU.

"I ain’t going to get into too many details, Clowney said, “but he’s a bucket-getter."

Added Pringle: “Yeah, he’s definitely a bucket-getter. I haven’t seen a guy like that in a long time. He’s very different. He’s going to be very impactful for us. He’s a leader as a freshman. He’s got a bright future for sure.”