🏀 The history behind Alabama basketball's hard-hat mentality

[LeGarrette]

The history behind Alabama basketball's hard-hat mentality

A look behind Alabama basketball's blue-collar points.

alabama.rivals.com

Lindsey Hunter had seen enough. Serving as an assistant under Nate Oats at Buffalo during the 2016-17 season, the former Detroit Pistons guard took to the team’s whiteboard and scribbled down two desired traits: blue-collar and desperate. Little did he know he was transcribing what would become the ethos of Oats’ working-class identity, something that has proved highly influential during the head coach’s first year at Alabama.

“Lindsey walks in after a game and he just basically says to the team, ‘We’re not blue-collar enough,” Oats remembers. “I thought about it that night, and I thought, ‘He’s right, we aren’t blue-collar enough. I don’t even think our players even know what blue-collar means.’”

Rest assured, Oats’ players have a full understanding of the terminology today. The blue-collar mindset isn’t just talked about, it’s charted. One of the quirks in Oats’ analytical approach has been keeping track of effort plays. The practice dates back to his high school coaching days in Detroit where he routinely tallied deflections, charges and floor dives.

However, until Hunter, the data didn’t have a name. Now Oats’ staff refers to the new statistical category as “blue-collar points.” The scoring system is comprised of an accumulation of various hustle plays that have corresponding values.

Crimson Tide fans might be more familiar with the “Blue Collar Award,” a regulation hard hat handed out after each game to the player with the most blue-collar points. Alabama paid tribute to the award before its 83-64 victory over Auburn earlier this month, passing out replica hard hats to the first 500 students in attendance. Although, to better understand the award it helps to know its history.

The hard hat’s history

Oats is exaggerating a bit when he said his players at Buffalo didn’t know the meaning of the term blue-collar. The trick was getting them to understand its full importance.

Blue-collar points debuted during Oats’ second year as the head coach at Buffalo in which his team went 17-15 and failed to make the NCAA Tournament. While the rebuilding season resulted in an average record, it yielded plenty of reason for optimism. Oats’ yeoman-style saw the Bulls rank tied for No. 11 in the nation in rebounding while also improving in offensive rebounding, blocks and scoring defense from the year before.

“It was something we just had to grasp as a team,” said Dontay Caruthers, who played guard for Oats at Buffalo from 2016-18. “Everybody still played hard before the award, but with the hard hat, everything started to come around. A few more players came in and we started to really bond as a team. We started playing for each other and not just for ourselves. The game became a lot easier at that time.”

It helped to have a visual representation of the team’s hard-nosed demeanor. Alabama director of player development Arnie Guin, who also worked under Oats in Buffalo, is responsible for providing the hard hat that was passed around to Buffalo players. According to Oats, the assistant picked up the prop from a friend in the construction business.

The hard hat itself was a simple enough icon given Buffalo’s industrial history. However, it also embodied the underdog persona of a Bulls team primarily filled with two- and three-star talent.

“At Buffalo, we had players who were kind of built in that mold,” said Hunter, who is now in his first season as head coach for Mississippi Valley State. “It suited us perfectly. And the guys who weren’t initially suited that way, they fell in line and they bought in because it became our identity.

"When you do it that way, I think it’s an easy sell. Those guys notice a change, and it’s fun when everybody buys in and is playing hard and they have that blue-collar mentality. It rubs off on you. It’s really infectious.”

Caruthers, who was named MAC Defensive Player of the Year during his first season under Oats, was a leading force in Buffalos’ blue-collar movement. The 6-foot-1, 191-pound guard donned the hard hat several times during his three seasons under Oats and remembers the award transforming from a “small competition within the locker room” into a driving force behind back-to-back tournament runs.

“It became something that we knew if we took pride in then our games would become a tad bit easier,” he said. “Floor dives and charges, those are some things that can change the tone of the game."

Buffalo saw drastic improvements over the next two seasons, going 27-9 in 2017-18 before posting a 32-4 record last year. The Bulls reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament in both seasons, including an 89-68 upset of No. 4 seed Arizona in 2018.

Bringing it to Bama

The headgear worn by Buffalo players did not make the trip down South after Oats was named Alabama’s head coach last spring. Fortunately for the Crimson Tide, Tuscaloosa’s ever-present construction scene presented plenty of opportunities for the new staff to find a replacement.
Alabama basketball strength coach Mike Snowden, who followed Oats from Buffalo, was put in charge of finding the next hard hat. Turns out he didn’t need to look far.

Snowden remembers running into a construction worker in the Coleman Coliseum parking lot during his first week on campus. While initial requests for a hard hat were rebuffed, his persistence paid off the following week as he was able to plead his way into acquiring a spare.
Snowden will proudly let you know that despite its shiny white surface and added script Alabama As, the Crimson Tide’s hard hat is indeed authentic.

“It’s not just an Amazon.com purchase,” he said. “That thing’s been a part of some things and helped get some work done.”

Snowden’s job was to make sure Alabama did the same. After acquiring the hard hat, the strength coach wasted no time introducing it to his players while explaining the amount of work that was in store over the summer. The award was first passed around as players were signaled out for their efforts in the weight room.

“It was getting them in that mindset of you got to work hard to get rewarded,” Snowden said.

That thought process proved important during Alabama’s grueling workouts this offseason. During Oats’ first week on the job, he admitted his new all-out attack came as a bit of a culture shock to some of his new players who were a bit “gassed” by the final whistle.

Alabama’s summer activities included a military-style boot camp as well as sparring rounds inside of world heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder’s gym. The team also released several video clips of players running the steps inside Bryant-Denny Stadium as well as several other strenuous exercises. The aim was to prepare players with a fighter’s mentality while readying them for Oats’ grinding style.

The offseason work seems to have paid off as Alabama’s newfound blue-collar presence is already noticeable over its first 19 games. The Crimson Tide is currently third in the nation averaging 76.1 possessions per 40 minutes and ranks No. 7 with an SEC-best 41.47 rebounds per game. The fast-paced approach has also resulted in Alabama ranking No. 5 nationally in scoring offense with 82.8 points per game.

Method to the madness

The scoring system behind Alabama’s Blue-Collar Award isn’t too complicated. Deflections, steals, blocks, rebounds and loose balls all count for one point, while offensive rebounds are worth 1.5 points. A floor dive will earn a player two points, while a drawn charge generates the largest total with four points.

“We tried to get every stat that measures effort we could. Then the ones that are harder to get, tried to give them more points,” Oats explained. “Obviously, putting your body in and taking a charge is worth the most. Diving on the floor and kind of giving your body up is the second most. It just goes from there.”

Blue-collar success generally translates to other parts of the game. Oats, a former high school math teacher, said he often breaks out a regression line to explain to his players the correlation between hustle points and actual points.

“I would say a good example of that would be Jaylen Forbes,” Snowden said. “He’s one who’s a shooter, sometimes has a tough time getting shots to go in. But if you notice, when he starts getting those rebounds, the shots start to fall for him.”

The stats check out. In the four games where Forbes has recorded four or more rebounds, he’s shot a combined 5 of 10 (50 percent) from the floor.

During the 14 games where he’s failed to record at least four rebounds, he’s seen his shooting drop to a combined 7 of 29 (24.1 percent).

The same can be said of starting guard John Petty Jr., who leads the team with 7.1 rebounds per game, up from 4.2 last season. The junior’s increased rebounding totals have been paired with an improvement on the offensive end as he’s averaging 16.4 points while shooting 48.3 percent, including an SEC-best 47.8 percent from beyond the arc.

Hebert Jones is Alabama’s runaway leader in blue-collar points with 386.5. The junior forward has earned the hard hat 10 times over 18 games and leads the team in charges taken (15) and floor dives (22). The Crimson Tide’s next-highest earner is Petty with 301 blue-collar points.

“I feel like that’s how I impact winning, doing what I have to do for the team to win,” Jones said earlier this season. “It’s like the hustle points. … It’s good to know they’re watching, even though it doesn’t show up in the box score. It’s good to know they’re acknowledging that we’re playing hard.”

Despite Jones’ lofty lead atop the standings, there’s still some healthy competition for the title. Alabama monitors its hustle stats during games, informing its players of where they stand at halftime.

While Oats encourages the competition, he’s more concerned with the team’s overall total. Alabama’s goal is to get 120 blue-collar points every game, something it has failed to do since its season opener against Penn. Still, the Crimson Tide has shown progress of late, recording 100 or more in each game of its current four-game winning streak.

Alabama (12-7, 4-2 in the SEC) will look to build on its current run Wednesday as it travels to Baton Rouge, La., to take on No. 22 LSU (15-4, 6-0) at 6 p.m. The Tigers are the only SEC team still undefeated in conference play and enter the matchup narrowly trailing the Crimson Tide in scoring (79.6 points per game) and rebounding (39.8 per game)

All the more reason for Alabama to pack its hard hat.