No. 4 Alabama Basketball Looks to Avoid Letdown against Memphis
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The Alabama basketball program has reached new heights under fourth year head coach Nate Oats. As of Monday afternoon, the Crimson Tide is now ranked fourth in the country following a road win at then-No. 1 Houston on Saturday.
“It’s good to see hard work pay off, but we’re not satisfied,” guard Mark Sears said. “We’re not satisfied until March.”
Now 8-1, Alabama will now take on the Memphis Tigers, who embarrassed the Crimson Tide last season — when Alabama was in a similar position.
“[We] kind of have a repeat of last year,” head coach Nate Oats said. “Last year we beat Gonzaga, and then beat Houston — then we had the Memphis game.”
“We’ve kind of talked to our guys about letdown and being consistent,” Oats said. “Memphis is a really good team. Even if you play well, you could get beat by Memphis. If you look at their top 10 guys, nine of the 10 are seniors — five of those nine are fifth-year seniors. They’ve got leadership, they’ve got experience — and they're winning. It’s gonna be a good test.”
Last year, the Crimson Tide was ranked sixth in the country when it entered FedEx Forum on Dec. 14, 2021. The Tigers were struggling, having lost four games in a row entering the game. Memphis, full of young talent, exposed Alabama in every way, walking away with a 92-78 victory. The Crimson Tide turned the ball over 20 times and allowed nearly 100 points in a game that showed the flaws that would bite the team all season.
Many Crimson Tide fans believe that was the moment the season turned in a downward direction last year.
Alabama doesn’t want that to happen again.
“[Jahvon] Quinerly talked about it after practice today,” Oats said. “We know what happened last year. We’ve got some business to take care of this year. We gotta be locked in — the whole program talked about it. This is not a team we want to be up and down. We’re up right now and we need to be better on Tuesday than we were on Saturday.”
“We’re gonna know who’s bought into the message that we’ve been sending for the last six months and who’s not based on who’s ready to go tomorrow night.”
Welcome to 2022-23, where Alabama has a chance to get revenge for the brutal loss from a season ago. The Crimson Tide has just one loss so far this season — a 15-point defeat at the hands of No. 3 UConn at the Phil Knight Invitational.
Alabama is in the middle of a key stretch prior to SEC play. Just like last season, the Crimson Tide was set to face Houston, Memphis and Gonzaga. Alabama took care of business against the Cougars when it wasn’t expected to. Now it will play the Tigers (8-2), who it is expected to beat.
Will it? We’ll find out when No. 4 Alabama and Memphis meet at Coleman Coliseum on Tuesday, Dec. 13 at 8 p.m. CT on ESPN2.
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