Which brings us to the menās basketball program, and the ongoing efforts to budge into conversations about the best.
It hasnāt often come close to that. Alabama has had empirically good years, notably a period under the watches of C.M. Newton and then Wimp Sanderson from the mid-1970s through the early ā90s featuring 12 NCAA Tournament appearances and seven runs to the Sweet 16. The Crimson Tide have reached one Elite Eight, in 2004, and have never been to the Final Four. Itās not a place without history, but it is a place thatās not enjoyed historically great menās basketball moments. It has not been, to stretch the analogy, Michigan or Virginia in this regard.
The current group is taking its shot at changing the paradigm; if you donāt remember Alabama being this good, chances are it wasnāt. Hence the contract extension delivered to Oats, 46, just last week, before his second year at the helm is even complete, with the deal now running through the end of the 2027 season and lifting his compensation clear of the $3 million a year mark. A nod to the deft button-pushing Oats and his staff have done in 2020-21, for sure, but also a statement about the investment the school is making in its expectations of excellence. āWhen we hired (Oats),ā Byrne says, āI said weāll continue to grow you and grow the program as time goes on, and thatās what weāre committed to doing.ā
On the floor, the implementation and execution of a free-flowing, analytics-heavy offense arenāt entirely beside the point; getting a group to do what you want, and do it well, requires a coach to be good at his job. But Alabama played fast and shot a lot of 3s last year and is doing both of those things again this year, if only slightly more effectively (24th in adjusted efficiency this season versus 37th last year). Itās understandable why people would conclude this is the reason the Crimson Tide have won 18 of 23 games and 13 of 14 in the SEC and have a commanding lead atop the league, but it undersells how deftly Oats and his staff grew the operation into a national contender.
This is the people variable in the equation: Coaches made decisions, strategic and otherwise, that mightāve submarined the effort had the strategies failed or broke badly. They didnāt. And here Alabama is.
Of all the endeavors that fall into this category, transforming Alabama into an elite defensive unit is the most consequential, and oddly the part for which Oats doesnāt get quite enough credit. The Crimson Tide ranked 114th in defensive efficiency in his first season; they started this week ranked second nationally in that department. Itās not a philosophical accident. Oatsā best Buffalo teams were edgy and unrelenting on that end of the floor, and the raft of long, interchangeable pieces on the Alabama roster suggested something similar could be done in 2020-21. This requires buy-in, though. And itās much easier to get kids on board to play fast and shoot quickly than it is to persuade them to get in a stance.
Some of it is attributable to savvy personnel maneuvering. Landing forward Jordan Bruner as a grad transfer was about locating and inserting a linchpin on the defensive end as much as anything; Yale was 18 points better per 100 possessions with the 6-foot-10 Bruner on the floor in 2019-20. Some of it is simply reinforcing the principle during offseason preparation, like any coach in any program might. āThere would be days where it would just be all defense,ā sophomore guard Jaden Shackelford says. There are persnickety film sessions in which Oats and the staff identify poor rotations and missed assignments. āJust because someone missed,ā junior guard Keon Ellis says, ādoesnāt mean we played good defense.ā
But a good part of it, too, was selling a vision. Burrowing into a playerās mind and leaving behind an idea that the player canāt shake. Itās how you turn Jaden Shackelford, Freshman Liability, into Jaden Shackelford, Sophomore Who Likes to Play Defense, with a little help at home from Dad.
In his first season at Alabama, the 6-foot-3 guard had a defensive box score plus-minus of minus-0.2, per Basketball Reference. āShackelford wasnāt a very good defender last year,ā Oats says, āand that might be an understatement.ā One of the subjects of the standard coach-player debrief last spring was the imperative for Shackelford to become more reliable on that end. Oats framed it in a way to which most former top-100 recruits would respond: It was what Shackelford needed to do to put himself in the best position for a basketball life after college.
At home, while training remotely during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, Shackelford made defensive drills a staple of workouts with his father. Improved lateral quickness was a top priority, so the younger Shackelford slid across the floor with weights strapped to him. It says quite a bit about the message Oats was able to drive home; he essentially informed a player that his basketball health depended on drinking more milk, and the player bought it. āYou usually donāt go into the gym saying, Iām about to do 50 defensive slides, close-outs, stuff like that,ā Shackelford says. āBut, I mean, once you do it, it pays off. Trust me.ā
Upon Shackelfordās return to campus, the process evolved into more assiduous and pointed film study, and the ability to exploit tendencies as a defender. His goal now is to draw on-ball charges as often as he can, and he wouldnāt be able to accomplish that goal without an intentional approach to preparation. āIf Iām closing out to a guard that loves to attack with the ball and re-attack?ā the sophomore says. āIf heās a strong right, Iām going to close out, step to the left. If I cut him off, heās going to drive again and Iām going to take a charge. Thereās a lot to it, but at the same time, itās just guarding your man.ā
. Oh and on the girls. Maybe they did talk to you about that part.
