After spending all morning worrying about what the College Football Playoff Selection Committee would do with the Crimson Tide football team after its embarrassing performance in the SEC Championship Game
yesterday – could I interest you in an Alabama team that’s never sweating it out on Selection Sunday anymore? That’s right, Nate Oats’ squad returns to the hardwood today in Tuscaloosa. In fact, if you are looking for a cathartic performance from the men in Crimson & White, I’ve got a perfect remedy as Alabama takes a brief reprieve from the usual murderer’s row that the Tide plays in nonconference action for a matchup with the UT-San Antonio Roadrunners.
How to Watch
What: UTSA (4-4) vs #12 Alabama (6-2)
Where: The Hangar – Tuscaloosa, AL
When: 1:00 pm CT
TV: SEC Network
Line: Tide -33.5
UTSA is…well…not good at basketball. Easily the worst team we will play the rest of the season. The Roadrunners have already lost to South Alabama, Abilene Christian, Texas State, and Southern Illinois – Edwardsville. They are 357th in the country in Effective FG%. Kenpom has them listed as the 268th best team in the country. To say they are an outlier on our nonconference slate would be a generous description of the ‘Runners.
Unfortunately (for him, at least), it’s a former Tide hoops staff member leading UTSA this season. Austin Claunch wasn’t long for Tuscaloosa, but he was an assistant on Oats’ staff for the 2024 Final Four run. He parlayed that season (along with his time as a head coach at Nicholls State) into the main job at UTSA, where he’s had a serious rebuild on his hands. The Roadrunners haven’t had a winning season since 2021 and last made the NCAA Tournament in 2011, when they won the Southland tournament championship. It’s not exactly a premier basketball program.
Nate Oats has been intentional about hooking his former assistants up with matchups with the Tide – this is the first of three ‘master vs. apprentice’ battles that Alabama will play. Meetings with Bryan Hodgson’s USF Bulls and Antoine Pettway’s Kennesaw State Owls both remain on the schedule. Those will represent much stiffer tests.
I won’t spend too much time breaking down this game. Alabama is favored by 33.5 for a reason. However, with how banged up the Tide is right now, and with a showdown with #2 Arizona in Birmingham looming next weekend, this is a good opportunity for Oats’ team to develop depth and get some rest for guys like Aden Holloway, Latrell Wrightsell, and Keitenn Bristow. It’s also another chance for Jalil Bathea to get his legs under him and log some more live reps, as he clearly looked rusty earlier this week against Clemson. I’d expect it to be a few weeks before he’s playing the kind of minutes we had hoped to see him play this season.
We’ll continue to use this space as our Game Thread. Roll Tide!
