No Sugar Coat: Alabama Basketball Seeks to End Complacency Woes

Last season, complacency was a large factor in the Crimson Tide's 0-4 end to the season. This year, the team's leadership aims to change that.

Merriam-Webster defines the word 'complacency' as the following: "An instance of usually unaware or uninformed self-satisfaction."

For Alabama men's basketball throughout the 2021-22 season, complacency played a key role in the team's ultimate demise. It's no small secret that the Crimson Tide finished off its year losing its last four games, including its first games in both the SEC and NCAA tournaments. After an incredible run in non-conference play that included wins over three of the prior year's Final Four teams in Gonzaga, Houston and Baylor, Alabama's season ended with a quiet whimper rather than a loud bang.

This coming season, though, the Crimson Tide is doing everything it can to avoid making the same mistake again.

At SEC Tipoff '23, complacency was a primary topic of discussion for Alabama head coach Nate Oats as well as the two player reps, sophomore center Charles Bediako and graduate forward Noah Gurley.

With his opportunity to speak to reporters coming first on the main stage, Oats initialized the conversation around the complacency on the team last season — particularly after the team's ranked victories.

"We just had a little bit of complacency after some of those big wins," Oats said. "I’ve gotta do a better job as a head coach of making sure complacency doesn’t enter when we do have a good win. It’s a lot harder to handle success sometimes than it is to handle failure.

"You can get their attention after they get beat. Can you still get their attention and get them to practice as hard as they need to and stay focused after big wins like we had last year? I didn’t do a good enough job doing that, and we’ve gotta do a better job as a program of doing that this year, I think.”

Alabama Athletics

After beating No. 3 Gonzaga at the Battle in Seattle and then taking down No. 14 Houston just a week later last December, it appeared that Alabama basketball was poised for a great season. However, a lopsided 92-78 loss at Memphis started a tumble that saw the Crimson Tide lose five of its next eight games, including very winnable matchups such as Davidson and Missouri.

The most curious part of it all? Alabama still won its big games. While the Crimson Tide lost by four points to the No. 4 Auburn Tigers, Alabama still managed to take down No. 14 Tennessee and No. 13 LSU. However, an 87-78 win over No. 4 Baylor in the Big 12/SEC Challenge would ultimately be Alabama's last win over a ranked opponent.

With a 19-14 record to finish the season that was one year removed from its SEC Tournament title, the Crimson Tide's season came to a sudden and abrupt halt after Notre Dame took care of business in the First Round of the NCAA Tournament and handed Alabama the loss. Combine that with an ACL injury to junior guard Jahvon Quinerly in the first half, and things were trending downwards for the Crimson Tide.

The 0-4 end of the season was certainly not what Alabama fans wanted to see. During his time with the media at SEC Tipoff, Bediako said that he and his teammates are learning from the experience and using it as motivation.

“The biggest thing is really just the leadership and being able to step up when adversity hits,” Bediako said. “I think that’s just really the biggest thing that these guys — that we told them they just gotta be ready for especially in the tournament. Not everybody makes it to the tournament, but it’s really — you’re only guaranteed one game, tomorrow’s not a promise.”

Bediako also noted that when it comes to last season, he and his teammates don't tend to dwell on the past.

“We don’t really talk about that much," Bediako said. "I think we’re all just kinda focused on this new year. What happened last year happened. We just gotta learn from it and move on. That’s really just about it. Figure out the things we can do better as a team for this year that we didn’t have last year.”

Over the summer the Crimson Tide traveled on a highly-successful European Tour that saw the team return to Tuscaloosa having obtained a 3-0 record overseas. With wins over the Spain Select Team, Lithuania Men's B Team and the Chinese National Team, the team appeared to be on the up-and-up as summer came to a close.

Then came the closed scrimmage at TCU.

On Oct. 16, the Crimson Tide traveled to Ft. Worth, Texas to take on the Horned Frogs in a closed scrimmage game. The results that came back weren't pretty: a 99-69 loss that saw Alabama turn the ball over 22 times compared to 13 by TCU. The Crimson Tide shot just 7-of-28 from beyond the arc, with freshman Brandon Miller making four of the team's 3s.

After the loss, the team was understandably disappointed. After the growth over the summer and the rebuilding of team chemistry due to so many new faces being on the team, a loss of that magnitude simply wouldn't cut it. Sure, Bediako and sophomore guard Nimari Burnett might have been held out due to minor injuries, but the team wasn't looking for any excuses.

Refusing to make the same mistakes as he and his team did last year, Quinerly called for a players-only meeting to take place the morning after the game.

“After that scrimmage JQ, he’s the one that came up with the idea that we should have a players-only meeting the next morning and make sure everybody’s there on time,” Bediako said. “Everybody was there and we had Noah Gurley and Nimari lead it and us returners. It was a really good talk. Everybody agreed on what happened and what we needed to work on and I think that’s just a good step on the right track, especially so early.

"Last year after our scrimmages we didn’t really have a meeting because we thought that everything was alright, but we would have meetings like midseason. Starting early, I think it’s good that we’re fixing our stuff we gotta fix now.”

Photo | Gary Cosby Jr. / USA TODAY NETWORK

According to Bediako, Gurley and Burnett pulled out a wipe board and began to rank issues that had occurred against the Horned Frogs. When the meeting concluded, the criticism from the team leadership was accepted well by the entirety of the team.

“Not yelling or screaming,” Bediako laughed. “I mean, that probably would just not end well. Definitely just like being real, no sugar coat. Just accept what our downfalls were. We just gotta own it and just build on it in our next practice because at the end of the day I feel like us players, if we talk to each other and we talk about what we gotta fix the player will be more like — they’ll think about it more, be more ready to fix it."

With Alabama having eight new players in the program this season, building team chemistry will be paramount to the team's success. While the European Tour might have been a good jumpstart, team meetings where the older, more veteran team leadership holds everyone accountable is another way to accomplish that goal.

As Bediako noted, the fact that Alabama is already hosting team meetings this early outside of its normal schedule is a sign of growth and maturity within the program. While last season might have shown a decent bit of complacency, the team is dead-set on making sure that doesn't happen again.

Hosting a players-only meeting after a simple scrimmage loss it quite a statement.

Gurley — who Bediako joked looked like a teacher with his wipe board and dry erase marker during the meeting — echoed his younger teammate.

“That was something new that we didn’t do last year," Gurley said. "Meetings were called together with the whole family, but after the scrimmage we as players got together and we talked things out and we talked about our goals and what we have to do to reach them. So just being more player-led.”

Alabama Athletics

The end of the 2021-22 season was hardly what Alabama fans wanted to see for their team. With that being said, for all of the anguish felt by Crimson Tide fans, it was even worse for the players and coaches of the program.

The meeting scheduled by the team's leadership is evidence that the winds of change are sweeping through Tuscaloosa. While fans won't know the impact of the growing leadership until the start of the season, there are plenty of good signs showing that complacency will not be as large of an issue as it has been in seasons past.

And according to Oats, it's not just the returners who are focused on correcting past struggles with complacency.

"I think everybody’s got a little bit of a sour taste in their mouth, including the new guys," Oats said. "There hasn’t been a ton of talk, but guys know that there’s certain things that had to change, some stuff in the culture had to change and I think the returners have made that clear. They’ve said we’re not gonna have certain things this year, and I think so far, they’ve done a pretty good job of holding the new guys and themselves accountable.

"We’re looking to have a little better NCAA Tournament, SEC Tournament finish than what we had last year.”

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