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Bama News
Behind a gritty 70-59 win over Kentucky on Tuesday night, Alabama pulled its first regular-season sweep of the Wildcats in over 30 years. The victory also pushed Alabama’s winning streak up to 10-games for the first time since 1996, as the Crimson Tide improved to 9-0 in the SEC, 14-3 overall.
With a Top-10 ranking and a stronghold atop the SEC standings, Nate Oats’ Alabama squad looks like title contenders. According to ESPN analyst Jay Bilas, the Crimson Tide are a legit Final Four team, and may even have what it takes to win it all.
“Alabama is really good and they play a great style because they get up and down the floor,” Bilas explained during Thursday's Paul Finebaum Show. “They stretch the floor because they can shoot from just about every position. So they do take and make a lot of threes, they make about 11-12 a game. Heck, they had 23 in that game against LSU which looked more like a video game than a regular-season college game. And they’ll attack the rim, so they do get fouls and get to the free-throw line. But it’s just a joy to watch them play, and they are much better defensively than they get credit for, and one of the big reasons they’re so good on defense is Herbert Jones. I think he should be talked about for SEC Player of the Year. That’s how valuable I think he is, not only to what Alabama does but just how valuable he is in general as a basketball player because he plays at both ends of the floor. He passes, handles, rebounds, scores, he really does absolutely everything on the court.”
Through 17 games this season, Jones is averaging 12.9 points on 47.7% shooting from the field with a team-leading 5.9 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 1.7 steals, and 1.1 blocks per 26.8 minutes. Considered one of the top defensive players in the country, the senior wing has been named to the 2021 Naismith Defensive Player of the Year midseason watch list.
As far as tournament hopes, Bilas believes Alabama is built to go deep into March.
“I think Alabama is sort of in the second tier, a group of teams that can not only make it to a Final Four, but they can sneak through and win it. I still think Gonzaga and Baylor are the two best teams, but I think you have to start talking about teams like Alabama, Florida State, you know we’ve talked about Michigan and Villanova, those type of teams, but I would put Alabama up there with Florida State as sort of the new bloods that are better than the Blue Bloods this year and have an absolute chance to do something special when we get to the end.”
Alabama returns to action this Saturday for a road test at Oklahoma as part of the SEC/Big-12 Challenge. Tipoff against the Sooners is set for 11:00 a.m. CT on ESPN.
