Contextualizing How Historically Good the Alabama Basketball Offense Is

The Crimson Tide has fielded a historic offense so far through the 2024 season. How does it stack up against some of the great offenses in the history of the sport?

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — When Nate Oats came to Alabama from Buffalo, fans were promised a high-octane offensive system with a fast pace and lots of 3-pointers. 

Fans of the Crimson Tide have been treated to just that, with Alabama having one of the most high-powered offenses in college basketball each and every year over the course of Oats' nearly 5-year tenure. 

This year, though, it's been his best offense yet. 

At 90.3 points per game, Alabama is scoring the most points of any team in all of college basketball. That's first place out of 362 teams. The Crimson Tide also ranks 8th nationally in effective field goal percentage, and 13th in 3-point percentage. 

Alabama is shooting over 38 percent from beyond the arc as a team, and boasts four different rotation players shooting above 40 percent from three individually.

While raw numbers like this are impressive, the real eye-popping numbers come from the analytics. 

Since there are so many teams in college basketball, there are a wide variety of analytics services that measure team's efficiencies on both ends of the floor in order to provide an easier a way to rank the large quantity of teams beyond just looking at win/loss record. One of the most popular analytics services in college basketball is KenPom.com, a website created by Kenneth Pomeroy in 1999. 

KenPom has a formula to create a team's adjusted offensive efficiency and adjusted defensive efficiency metrics. Essentially, the metrics are primarily based on the amount of points a team scores per 100 possessions, with some additional variables factored in to adjust for opponent strength. 

Alabama's adjusted offensive efficiency number as it stands during the Crimson Tide's bye week is 126.2, the No. 1 offense in the country.

What's more, that number ranks as the fifth-highest offensive efficiency in the history of KenPom. That means in the past 25 years, only four other offenses in college basketball have been more efficient than Alabama in 2024.

1. 2015 Wisconsin - 129.0
2. 2018 Villanova - 127.8
3. 1999 Duke - 127.7
4. 2021 Gonzaga - 126.4
5. 2024 Alabama - 126.2

Continuing to dig into the data and history of offensive efficiencies on KenPom, it might be even more impressive to note that only 12 teams in KenPom's history have posted an offensive efficiency rating of at least 125.0. That's 12 teams total, out of 25 years of tracking efficiencies for over 300 teams per year. 

12 out of roughly 7,500 teams, or 0.16%.

Here's a list of those 12 teams in chronological order, as well as what seed they ended up being in the NCAA Tournament that season:

• 1999 Duke, 127.7, 1 seed
• 2001 Stanford, 125.0, 1 seed
• 2011 Ohio State, 125.0, 1 seed
• 2012 Missouri, 125.1, 2 seed
• 2015 Wisconsin, 129.0, 1 seed
• 2015 Notre Dame, 125.4, 3 seed
• 2017 Oklahoma State, 126.0, 10 seed
• 2018 Villanova, 127.8, 1 seed
• 2021 Gonzaga, 126.4, 1 seed
• 2021 Baylor, 125.0, 1 seed
• 2024 Alabama, 126.2
• 2024 Purdue, 125.2

Of the 10 teams that posted an adjusted efficiency metric of at least 125 before this season, seven of them received a 1-seed in the NCAA Tournament. That seemingly bodes well for Alabama, except for the fact that the majority of these elite offenses were paired with great defenses as well. 

Every single 1-seed on this list had a defensive efficiency metric that ranked in the top-35 nationally. This season, Alabama's defensive has been far from elite, and that fact has been well-documented. 

The Crimson Tide defense currently sits at 74th in KenPom.

Looking back at that list, the five members that ended up making the Final Four all also had defensive efficiencies that ranked in the top-35. Similarly, the two members of that list that lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, 2012 Missouri and 2017 Oklahoma State, had defenses that ranked outside the top-100, 111th and 155th, respectively. 

Of all the teams in KenPom history that have been as dynamic as this year's Alabama team on the offensive end, only one compares similarly defensively: 2015 Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish in 2015 had a defensive efficiency rating of 100.4, ranking 99th in the country that season. Alabama's currently sits at 100.7. 

Notre Dame was a 3-seed in 2015, which is where the majority of brackets currently project the Crimson Tide to be by the time the season plays itself out. In 2015, Notre Dame ended up making the Elite Eight, before falling by two points to 1-seed Kentucky.

If you ask Alabama fans, I'm sure they would do backflips for an Elite Eight, especially considering the way this season started and the fact that it's only happened one other time in program history. 

But this is such a small sample size that it can't be used as predictive in any form or fashion. What we know for sure, is that this is an all-time great offense, that gives this team a sky-high ceiling in March.

Only time will tell if it ends up reaching that ceiling. In the meantime, just sit back and enjoy the show. 

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