Three Takeaways From No. 2 Alabama Basketball's Head-Scratching Victory Over McNeese

While the Crimson Tide's defense showed a lot of positive signs against the Cowboys, the same cannot be said for Alabama's renowned offense.

Alabama basketball coach Nate Oats fired up at Coleman Coliseum in Tuscaloosa, AL on Monday, Nov 11, 2024. / Photo by Crimson Tide Photos / UA Athletics

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— No. 2 Alabama men's basketball defeated McNeese State 72-64 on Monday night in Coleman Coliseum. However, as the score suggests this was far from an easy victory.

The Crimson Tide was up by as much as 21 points early in the second half, but a big run by the Cowboys combined with some major offensive struggles by Alabama made this game much closer than it should've been.

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

A Solid Defensive Performance

Alabama's 81.2 points allowed per contest last season were bottom-10 in the country, but the addition of longtime NBA defensive assistant Brian Adams should seriously lower that number.

We saw a big improvement in the Crimson Tide's defense during the season-opening dismantling over UNC Asheville, but the extremely high number of free throws given up to Arkansas State in a sloppy battle challenged that notion. However, Monday night was a solid defensive performance by Alabama against McNeese.

McNeese may have scored a low 64 points, but its 39 percent shooting from the field isn't a bad outing. However, this decent percentage was due to the Cowboys' time spent with the ball in their hands as they often took off a good chunk of time on the shot clock before an attempt. McNeese head coach Will Wade said during the postgame press conference that his team "played too slow" and that "the ball ended up getting to the right place at times, but way too late in the clock."

Wade explained that this was heavily due to the paint presence of 6-foot-11 graduate Rutgers transfer center Clifford Omoruyi and also 6-foot-10 freshman forward Aiden Sherrell. McNeese has one player at 6-foot-8 and two players at 6-foot-9 as the tallest players on its roster, meanwhile Alabama has four players who are at least 6-foot-10. The Cowboys had to shoot from midrange very often as the hesitancy to drive inside is a big reason for them shooting "way too late."

Allowing free throws to opponents has been the main flaw of the Crimson Tide's defense to open the season, but Alabama did a very nice job of defending without fouling on Monday evening as McNeese attempted just 11 free throws (made nine). Foul shots often stem from whistles in the paint, but the intimidation factor from Omoruyi, who had three blocks, among others, prevented the Cowboys from even really trying to shoot over him with the aim of drawing contact. This also helps explain why McNeese only tallied three assists as the ball didn't move too much on the inside.

“I thought we did a fairly decent job [defensively] for a majority of the game," Oats said during the postgame press conference. "I think we’ve got different options we can go to. I thought Cliff came alive there as he had three blocks. We put him back in there in the second half and I thought he did pretty well. And then they were kind of starting to get downhill against his drops, so we put Jarin [Stevenson] and Grant [Nelson] at the four and five and switched. We’ve got different options. I thought [Latrell] Wrightsell was really good. You look at plus-minus, Wrightsell led the team at plus-17, and then Jarin, even though he didn’t shoot it well particularly, was a plus-16 when he was in the game."

Offense Freezes Up in Second Half

Up 40-31 to open the second half, Alabama's offense came out firing on all cylinders to quickly extend its lead to a what-would-seem-to-be comfortable 51-34. Wrightsell's two makes from behind the arc in the corner plus a ferocious standing dunk by Omoruyi put a ton of momentum in the Crimson Tide's hands.

But not all of the momentum. Four minutes later, McNeese found itself down 57-45 with a 9-0 run as the midrange and shots from deep began to fall. Alabama's offense started to play extremely sloppy with turnovers, and like McNeese, taking a while to shoot the ball and not converting.

Alabama's poor offense shifted the momentum towards McNeese's scoring ability as the Cowboys pulled within a score of just 60-54 with six minutes remaining. It started to get scary in Tuscaloosa as the Crimson Tide failed to record a field goal for nearly nine whole minutes. Reminder: Alabama led the country in points per game last season.

Alabama had nine turnovers in the second half alone, and converting free throw attempts––another rough stat category for the Tide to start the season––wasn't so great either as it finished 71 percent from the line. Additionally, while Monday night was easily Alabama's lowest score of the extremely young season, it would've been tied for the second-lowest point total last season (lost 91-71 to Tennessee, 86-72 to UConn in the Final Four and defeated Grand Canyon 72-61 in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

“[The offensive movement was] not good enough," Oats said. "This game, I didn’t like it. I thought we didn’t play with pop. We didn’t push the ball off the floor enough. We ended up with 68 possessions on offense. I don’t have the exact numbers in my head right now, but the four previous games, if you count the two exhibitions, I think we were in the 80s on maybe three of them, maybe all four of them. I think Memphis was like high 80s. So to have like 20 less possessions, that’s not really how we’re trying to play.

The First Half Initiator & Second Half Hero

While Alabama's offense as a whole was subpar, forward Grant Nelson really got the ball rolling to start the game. The Preseason All-SEC Second Team member started for the first time this season as he had restricted minutes for the first two games due to an injury.

Nelson was responsible for the Crimson Tide's first points with a dunk on the opening possession followed by four made free throws a couple of plays later, but he didn't stop from there. Alabama led 25-16 with seven minutes remaining in the first half and Nelson had 14 of those points. His effort on both sides of the ball helped Alabama make a 15-2 run for nearly six minutes.

Nelson finished the first half with 16 of Alabama's 41 points on 5-of-8 shooting, including 2-of-4 from downtown, plus four rebounds in 12 minutes of action. Three-pointers, jump shots, dunks and free throws were his methods of scoring throughout his very versatile first half. A couple more of each stat in the second half helped him earn the Hard Hat after the game for achieving the team's most blue-collar points.

“I think he looks like he’s back to [being] close to 100 percent to me after that game, so it’s good to get him back there," Oats said. "I think a combination of him being aggressive on offense, shooting it well––he hit those two threes––going to the free-throw line, converting at the free-throw line. And then he led us in rebounds with eight. He had 22 and eight. I thought his energy was great, so we’re going to need that out of him moving forward on a pretty consistent basis.”

The second half wasn't very favorable towards the Crimson Tide offense as it logged 31 points in the period to McNeese's 34. That said, Wrightsell shined in the latter 20 minutes of the game.

As previously stated, Wrightsell's two makes from long range early in the second half helped Alabama create a 21-point lead. However, it was cut to six until the the 6-foot-3 graduate guard ended the run with yet another corner three and Alabama pretty much calmed the Cowboys' storm from there.

Wrightsell was 1-of-2 from behind the arc in the first half, but finished the game on a very efficient 5-of-9 from that area––That's four threes in the second half! His five makes are tied for the second-most of his Alabama career, despite him going just 1-of-9 against Arkansas State.

“This is what we expected him to be," Oats said. "I think he’s another one that missed the exhibitions with an injury, so he just now getting back into his rhythm...Honestly, I thought he turned down some that I wished he would take it. As well as he was shooting it tonight, there were three or four he should have shot, I thought. And if he’d have taken three or four more and get 12 or 13 threes up, that’d be great because he’s one of the best shooters in the country in my opinion."

Alabama basketball made a lot of moves this offseason, as it brought in four freshmen and four transfers. However, perhaps the kings of Monday night were two of the five returners.

Following this performance, No. 2 Alabama basketball will take its first road test of the season against No. 13 Purdue on Friday, Nov. 15 at 6 p.m. CT on Peacock.