Five Takeaways From Alabama Basketball's Dismantling Win Over UNC Asheville

The Crimson Tide obliterated the Bulldogs in a season opener loaded with signs of big things to come.

Alabama Forward Jarin Stevenson Dunks vs. UNC Asheville / Obtained from Alabama Basketball's X/Twitter

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— No. 2 Alabama men's basketball couldn't have really started the season on a stronger note as the Crimson Tide absolutely throttled the UNC Asheville Bulldogs 110-54 at home.

This entire offseason has been loaded with hype for the Crimson Tide not only due to Alabama's first-ever Final Four appearance in April but also because head coach Nate Oats called the team his "best roster we've had since we've been here."

There's so much to dissect from this matchup at Coleman Coliseum. Here are five takeaways:

A Potential Introductory to a More Balanced Offense

Since Oats' arrival in 2019, Alabama basketball has quickly grown to one of the sport's top programs. This was heavily due to Oats' extremely fast-paced play style that heavily involves taking shots from behind the three-point line. For example, the Crimson Tide led all of Division I in points per game last season due to the nonstop conversions from behind the arc.

However, that wasn't the case as Alabama only attempted 18 threes on Tuesday night, despite averaging over 30 three-point attempts per game last season. The Tide made eight for a very efficient 44.4 percent from the field, but how else did they find a way to score an absurd 110 points? Well, 56 of those points were scored in the paint.

Alabama used its front court often to punish the Bulldogs down low, especially with Rutgers transfer center Cliff Omoruyi, who had 16 points on the night. Oats said during the preseason that 6-foot-11 sophomore forward Jarin Stevenson had gotten more physical and that was certainly apparent as he, along with sophomore forwards Mo Dioubate and freshmen forwards Derrion Reid and Aiden Sherrell, often drove inside and finished on layups and a plethora of dunks. Nevertheless, Oats didn't exactly say that this year's play style will be different from the past.

“People ask me all the time, ‘How many threes is ideal for your team?’ Well, we’ve averaged about 30 every year I’ve been here," Oats said during the postgame press conference. "So look, we’ll take 50, we’ll take 18. Whatever the defense is giving us, we’re gonna take. We’re going to try to be the most efficient team in the country. We were the second-most efficient team in the country last year behind UConn. We were No. 1 for most of the year and [Latrell Wrightsell Jr.] got hurt. [Wrightsell] was the fourth-most efficient player in the country and when he got hurt, we slipped from first to second.

“So if we’ve got a distinct advantage in the paint like we did tonight, we’ll go to it. Other teams are going to have really good defenders in the paint or they’re going to collapse to make sure that we’re—I wouldn’t know how teams are going to guard us. But some teams are going to look at this game [saying] ‘We got to really keep them out of the paint.’ Cliff's scoring 16 in a short amount of [minutes] and Labaron’s getting in the paint whenever he wants and guys are driving. If they collapse, we’ll spray it and take 46 threes.

“So I don’t think we’re going to try to necessarily change our plan style, but we definitely have some lob targets. You saw Derrion catch a lob there late. Cliff’s a big-time lob target—we threw him a couple of lobs. Aiden Sherrell can be one—he can be a pick-and-pop guy, a roll guy. And Jarin and Grant can both get in the lane and finish in the paint. I thought you saw Jarin show some physicality on his drives that he maybe didn’t show last year. I thought he did a great job showing some paint patience and being physical on his drives. Mo Dioubate is super physical. We got some guys that can score it in the paint. So if they’re gonna give us 56 points in the paint, we’ll take them.”

Depth is Everywhere

Wow wow wow. In a recent press conference, Oats admitted that he'd have to redshirt a couple of players (ended up being guards Houston Mallette and Naas Cunningham) due to the appalling amount of depth at every position on the roster. After 40 basketball minutes, this definitely made sense.

Of the 11 scholarship players who saw action on Tuesday night. Seven of them scored double figures: Mark Sears (20), Omoruyi (16), Latrell Wrightsell Jr. (13), Dioubate (11), Aden Holloway (11), Stevenson (10) and Labaron Philon (10).

This was due to Oats' game plan of constantly having fresh legs on the floor in his unique pace, which helped create 45 bench points. Nelson, Wrightsell and Sherrell had their minutes restricted due to some injuries they're nursing, but Nelson's team-low 15 minutes on the floor weren't much of a difference from the team-high.

“We tried to get everybody decent minutes," Oats said. "We only had two guys go over 24 minutes, barely over 24 with Holloway and Sears [and Philon], and everybody played at least 15 minutes. So I thought it was pretty good."

A Couple of Negatives

Winning by more than double in a basketball game is a tremendous accomplishment that is difficult to achieve even once in a single season. As good as Alabama played on Tuesday night, there were a couple of things that they could improve on.

The Crimson Tide lost the turnover battle 10-9. This was often due to Alabama's offense going a bit too fast, which resulted in some sloppiness, which was a common theme in last week's Memphis exhibition. That said, Alabama's quickness, whether on a takeaway or fast rebound, earned the Tide 33 fastbreak points compared to UNC Asheville's zero.

Alabama also tied the Bulldogs in the offensive rebounding category with 12 apiece. There were a handful of times when Crimson Tide defenders didn't box out, which led to an easy scoop and score for UNC Asheville as they tallied 14 second-chance points.

The last negative was the free throw conversions as Alabama hit on 26-of-37 attempts (70 percent). The Tide has done a really great job of getting to the line to start the year as it logged 48 attempts against Memphis. However, Alabama only converted on 62.5 percent of free throw attempts against the Tigers, meaning scoring from the charity stripe is a bit of an issue to start the 2024-25 campaign.

New and Improved Defense

Speaking of free throws, Alabama had a difficult time defending without fouling against Memphis as the Tigers also logged 48 attempts, converting on just 29. This was something to keep an eye on ahead of the season opener and the Tide showed a lot of improvement in this stat category as the Bulldogs only attempted 14 free throws all night, making eight of them.

While Alabama's offense was at the top of the college basketball mountain last season, its 81.2 points allowed per contest were bottom-10 in the country. To help fix this, Oats and company hired longtime NBA defensive assistant Brian Adams this offseason. His early messages to the team were instilled on Tuesday night as UNC Asheville struggled to get a shot off.

Up top, Sears, who Oats has commended multiple times for his defensive improvement in the offseason, plus Philon among others, held the Bulldogs to just 6-of-26 from downtown, as a hand was very often in shooters' faces. Philon also led Alabama in steals with three and tied for the team lead in blocks with two.

As the threes continued to miss the bottom of the net, UNC Asheville didn't exactly have an answer down low either as the Bulldogs recorded just 18 points in the paint. This was heavily due to just the presence alone of Alabama bigs Omoruyi and Sherrell, as UNC Asheville hesitated to even take shots in the painted area due to the two lengthy 7-footers. Sherrell even won the first Hard Hat Award of the season, which is given to the Crimson Tide player with the most amount of blue-collar points (non-scoreboard points for deflections, steals, blocks, offensive and defensive rebounds, loose balls, diving on the floor and drawing fouls.

"They couldn’t get shots off," Oats said. "I mean, we were blocking shots. Labaron had a block, Derrion had a block, Jarin Stevenson [too]. I mean, look down the list. We had four different guys that had blocks with Jarin, Derrion, Labaron’s got length at the guard spot and Cliff’s obviously a big-time rim protector—he had two blocks tonight. Then we also got guys that [have length]. Mo Dioubate’s got length, Grant Nelson’s got length. I think we can be a great defensive team if we continue to keep the right mindset. We held them to a 0.75 [points per possession], which is good, very good."

Watch Out For Alabama's Starting Backcourt

Another big reason for Alabama's No. 2 ranking was due to the hype surrounding the starting backcourt duo of Preseason AP All-American Mark Sears and highly touted freshman Labaron Philon.

Sears has been showered with preseason recognition and honors as he was predicted by both the media and coaches to win the conference's Player of the Year award and also land a spot on the All-SEC First Team and the Bob Cousy Award (nation's top point guard) watch list as well. Philon, a former 4-star recruit from Mobile, Ala., decommitted from Auburn and Kansas prior to finding a home in Tuscaloosa.

The college basketball world had a hunch that these two would really feed off of each other, and so far that would be accurate. They were the heavy offensive producers for Alabama in the scrimmages against Wake Forest and Memphis as the two combined for 69 points and 22 assists in those games. Against the Bulldogs, they combined for 30 points and 10 assists, nine of which came from the freshman.

We already know what makes Sears exciting to watch as he's done so much since his arrival to Alabama and the accolades speak for themselves. On Tuesday night, he scored a team-high 20 points on 6-of-8 from the field, including a nice 3-of-4 clip from deep.

Philon's quickly become known as an all-around threat on both sides of the ball. Last night's was a perfect example of this, as he finished with 10 points, a pair of rebounds, the aforementioned team-leading nine assists, plus other team leads in steals (3) and tied Omoruyi in blocks (2). He had relatively similar numbers in each of these stat categories during the scrimmages.