Nate Oats Looks To Improve Alabama's Defensive Rebounding Ahead of Arkansas State Game

The Crimson Tide head coach said he's happy with the defensive effort the team has shown so far, but still has areas to improve.

Nov 4, 2024; Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA; UNC Asheville forward Greg Gantt Jr. (11) rebounds against Alabama center Clifford Omoruyi (11) at Coleman Coliseum. / Gary Cosby Jr / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- The No. 2 Alabama basketball program keeps its season going on Friday night as they welcome former Crimson Tide assistant and now second-year Arkansas State head coach Bryan Hodgson into Coleman Coliseum for the second game of the year for both programs.

The Crimson Tide entered the season with expectations through the roof as head coach Nate Oats has routinely preached his goal of being the first team to win a national championship for the University in basketball. Oats has been consistent throughout the summer that in order to get all the way to San Antonio the program must embrace the defensive end of the floor.

Alabama performed well defensively in the opening game of the season against UNC-Asheville as they held the Bulldogs to just .75 points per possession. The effort lands the Crimson Tide inside the top 25 in defensive efficiency to open the year, so where can the team look to improve over the next two games?

"You know what? Our defensive effort's been great," Oats said on Thursday. "Which that's the baseline, you've got to give effort every day. So that's where it needs to be. I think you saw some of the rim protection, Cliff [Omoruyi] had some good blocks Monday. They'll, Arkansas State'll probably do a little bit better job maybe trying to pull him out of the rim, but we're still going to get him to the rim as often as we can and try to protect the rim, but we also had guards that, Labaron [Philon] had two blocks. I think we've got tougher, more physical guards that keep the ball out of the lane.

"I think some areas of improvement, we've only had one real game, but the exhibition we've got to be able to be tough, physical without fouling. We fouled too much in the Memphis game. I think you've got to be able to do it every possession and no matter what the score is. I think you just establish that mindset and that's kind of what we're working on. There's no major gaping holes in our defense so far that I see, but it's just a lot of little things. Our defensive rebounding has got to get better. We gave up too many O-boards Monday and Arkansas State's going to really stress their offensive rebounding. They're an elite offensive rebounding team. Bryan coached that when he was here with us. He was kind of in charge of offensive rebounding. He's the head coach so he's paying attention to that and those guys go, they go really hard. We're going to have to do a better job boxing out, keeping them off the glass. That'd probably be the biggest area of concern I have against Arkansas State on our defensive end. There's other stuff, they've got good shooters. We can't let their shooters get off. They've got tough, physical, downhill drivers that we've got to do a good job keeping them out of the paint, but the offensive rebounding's an area they can really hurt you on and we haven't been great at that yet, we've got to get a lot better than that."

Alabama defeated Arkansas State 89-65 last season, but Hodgson brings a team into Tuscaloosa that looks much closer to his vision as he's utilized the transfer portal to improve. The Crimson Tide allowed 14 offensive rebounds to UNC-Asheville on Monday night, leading to 12 second chance points. Boxing out and cleaning up the defensive glass is the next step for Alabama to take to become an elite defensive team.