Takeaways from Alabama Basketball's Win Over South Alabama

Blake Byler's thoughts and takeaways from the Crimson Tide's third straight dominant victory to open the 2023-24 season.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama basketball looked utterly dominant once again on Tuesday night, decimating South Alabama a final score of 102-46.

Here are a few of my takeaways from the No. 22 Crimson Tide's third straight victory to open the 2023-24 campaign. 

1. The defense looked vastly improved.

The story through the first two games of Alabama's season had, of course, been the multiple 100-point outings offensively, but a subplot of the victories had been a few subpar defensive showings. 

Alabama gave up over 1 point per possession to both Morehead State and Indiana State to open the season, and Oats was adamant about the need for defensive improvement as the team entered the second week of the season. 

I'd say holding the opponent to just 46 points is an excellent start. 

The Crimson Tide look much more active defensively, causing blocks, forcing turnovers, and deflecting passes left and right. Alabama blocked six shots, turned South Alabama over 12 times, and ultimately held the Jaguars to just .697 points per possession.

The defensive performance showed just how dangerous Alabama can be, and how fast it can blow a game open. At the under-12 media timeout in the first half, the game was tied at 15. For the remainder of the first half, Alabama allowed just eight points in 12 minutes.

This team's offense is so good, that just a few stops on defense can completely blow the game open, and turn a 5-point game into a 17-point game in the blink of an eye. 

The defensive effort even led to more minutes for certain players, with Oats singling out freshmen Sam Walters and Davin Cosby in particular as guys who improved their defensive performances enough to earn more playing time, playing time which led to more scoring for the talented offensive players.

"That was a lot more like what we're trying to get on the defensive end," Nate Oats said. "I thought our effort was significantly improved. [...] Guys tried to cover each other's mistakes, took charges, I was happy with the effort.

2. New faces contribute to the scoring load. 

Coming into the game, Alabama had two players averaging over 20 points per game in Grant Nelson and Aaron Estrada. However against South Alabama, neither player even broke into double-digits. 

Mark Sears led the way in scoring with 17, doing so in an incredibly efficient manner, taking only seven shots for the whole game, and behind Sears were some new faces up high in the scoring column.

Walters broke out with 16 points, coming on perfect shooting from the field. It was a performance like many expected he was capable of after hearing about his exceptional play in the Crimson Tide's preseason scrimmages. He only fouled one time and played better defense, leading to a season-high in minutes and three made 3-pointers for the lanky freshman.

Nick Pringle scored 12, a season-high for him, but I'll come back to his performance in a moment. 

Mohamed Wague was excellent in his minutes, posting 10 points on perfect 5-for-5 shooting around the rim. Cosby added eight points of his own, canning a couple threes, and Rylan Griffen scored seven, all of which came in the first half. 

In total, Alabama had seven players score at least seven points, and every player that entered the game scored at least two. The Crimson Tide broke 100 points for the third consecutive game, the first time it's opened a season with three straight 100-point games since 1956-57, and did so without a single player scoring 20.

Once again, the offensive attack showed how many weapons it has in its arsenal, and still, Oats noted in the press conference how he has yet to get as many 3-pointers up in a game as he'd like. 

Obviously, this team won't score 100 points every single game, but good luck to opposing teams trying to gameplan who to key in on. 

3. Nick Pringle answers Oats' challenge.

Now, back to Pringle. 

On Monday's press conference before the game, Oats issued a very public challenge to Pringle, saying that he hasn't been as good as they've needed through the first two games of the season.

Pringle answered that challenge in a big way. Oats challenged him to improve as a rim protector, and Pringle recorded one blocked shot, and apparently had another that Oats believed he wasn't properly credited for.

He looked more engaged as a defender, as did the whole team, and he put his body on the line by drawing a charge in the first half.

"I thought Nick Pringle was much better," Oats said. "I thought he challenged shots at the rim, even when he didn't block them. 

He played 18 minutes, a season-high, grabbed seven rebounds, tied for a team-high in the game, and scored 12 points on perfect 6-for-6 shooting, many of which were explosive dunks on perfectly executed slips to the basket. 

Alabama has some monstrous opposing big men on the schedule coming up, including Ohio State's Zedd Key, Creighton's Ryan Kalkbrenner, Arizona's Oumar Ballo, and Purdue's Zach Edey. If Pringle is going to continue to hold his starting job as Alabama's 5-man, he's going to have to play at a high level so that the Crimson Tide can compete. 

Nate Oats Called for Better Defense, and Alabama Basketball Responded