I’ll be candid, folks – not beginning SEC Tournament play until Friday is something I am very happy to have gotten used to during the Nate Oats era. Just another reminder not to take these days for granted. One of the primary reasons why I appreciate it so much is that in March, no game is guaranteed. Just ask Texas or Georgia. While the day games in Nashville this week have been pretty mild, once the sun has gone down, chaos has ensued. When I previewed the tournament field on Wednesday morning,
I mentioned that Oklahoma was a potential sleeper that had the firepower in the backcourt to make a run.
I did not, however, call for Ole Miss to win back-to-back games against projected NCAA Tournament teams in route to a Friday night match-up with Alabama. Chris Beard’s vaunted “no middle” scheme had Texas in a chokehold, as the Longhorns couldn’t crack the Rebel defense. They shot 12/34 from two-point range and went -10 in turnover margin. I know it’s been a few years since Beard was the coach in Austin, but it was kind of wild watching his former team utterly fail offensively, as they kept dribbling right into the baseline trap that Ole Miss was urging them into.
Then last night, the Rebs came out on fire, shooting 9/20 from beyond the arc and then hunkering down defensively, as Georgia settled for bad shot after bad shot trying to match on the other end. The Bulldogs ended up shooting 9/38(!) from the perimeter and even left ten points at the free throw line. Like the Longhorns before them, the Dawgs simply didn’t do anything to test the Ole Miss defense, allowing them to stay in their matchup zone as they clanked one brick after another.
Which brings us to tonight.
From Last Time
Three Keys to Victory
– Control the Pace. This is another classic clash of styles between Oats and Beard. The Rebels are 303rd in Tempo, choosing to slow games down to a crawl and kill you with efficiency on offense and turnovers on defense. They pulled this off perfectly last year against Alabama. The Tide has to take advantage of its bevy of guards and get up and down the court tonight. Transition baskets will be the only ones that come easy when you play a Chris Beard defense.– Off-Ball Movement. The high PnR, drive-and-kick offense is – quite honestly – the worst possible offense you can run against the Rebels. Especially if you don’t attempt any midrange jumpers. Last season, Ole Miss forced Alabama’s guards towards the baseline and took away the skip pass with great effectiveness, and the Tide never adjusted. You have to have off-ball movement and good, crisp passing to beat Beard’s defense. It’s really not optional. Back door cuts, V-cuts, etc. Take advantage of the fact that the Rebels are packing the paint and playing zone.
– Offensive Rebounding. If you can’t make any headway in the halfcourt on Beard’s defense, you have to be able to grab offensive boards. The old adage, of course, is that you either have to shoot someone out of a zone or rebound them out of it. This is where the Rebels have fallen off significantly from last season, even with Dia back. They are 283rd in the country in OREB% allowed, often rendering their strong defensive possessions worthless, as the opponent ends up getting easy looks for second chance points.
In their only meeting of the regular season, Alabama really struggled to get things going against the Rebels early on. But that…well…changed quickly:
A 32-30 halftime lead quickly avalanched into a complete wipeout of Ole Miss in the second half, as the Tide outscored the Rebels 61(!)-44 in the second stanza. Latrell Wrightsell couldn’t miss, finishing the night 7/13 from three. Five total Tide players finished with double-digits scoring, as Alabama shot 17/45 as a team from long-range, most of which came in the second half. Nate Oats’ squad executed the gameplan perfectly – they pushed the tempo and crashed the offensive glass for 11 boards, in addition to the hot second half sharpshooting. It was, as the kids say, absolute cinema.
It was also a complete 180 from last season’s match-up with the Rebels in Tuscaloosa, which looked a lot more like what Ole Miss did to Texas and Georgia the past two nights. Make no mistake about it, this game is all about stylistic execution. Alabama is the superior team; the Tide is simply better at every position with the possible exception of the five-spot – Malik Dia has gone for 20 & 20 against us before. As long as Alabama is able to run the offense the same way they did in the prior meeting in Oxford, the Tide should be just fine tonight. We don’t need 60 points in a half out of them. But if the Tide’s guards get too iso heavy and careless with the basketball, while Ole Miss shoots like they did last night, watch out.
I’ve seen some folks state that the Tide got lucky drawing Ole Miss in this spot. I have to say that I disagree with that assessment. And I certainly hope that the players aren’t feeling that way. For one, from an NCAA Tournament standpoint, this was the worst-case scenario. Instead of a playing a Quad 1 opponent on a neutral site – as Texas or Georgia would’ve been – Alabama is instead playing a team that does nothing to boost its resume. For a team looking to secure a three-seed, there is nothing but downside here.
Additionally, this is an Ole Miss team that looks like they are having fun for the first time in literal months. I thought Chris Beard put it perfectly in their postgame pressers the past two nights when he said, “Everyone eventually plays win-or-go-home games in March; we just started our journey a week earlier than a lot of other teams”. It’s really a great way to look at it.
The Tide’s postseason journey won’t end this week in Nashville regardless of how things play out, but it does begin here tonight. Let’s hope Alabama ends up cutting down some nets over the course of the next month.
Roll Tide, folks.
