No. 10 Alabama men’s basketball dismantled No. 20 North Carolina 94-79 for its first road victory of the young season during Wednesday night’s SEC/ACC Challenge.
The Crimson Tide took control early on both sides of the ball to create a massive momentum boost and only built on it from there.
There’s so much to dissect from this matchup at Dean E. Smith Center. Here are three takeaways:
On Tuesday, Alabama head coach Nate Oats opened up about North Carolina’s guards, calling them “one of the better backcourts in the country” as they came into the game averaging almost 50 points between the three starters.
These three guards are Preseason All-American RJ Davis, Seth Trimble and Elliot Cadeau, who are leading the Tar Heels in points per game with 18.1, 16.4 and 14.4 respectively. Additionally, Trimble and Cadeau are shooting over 50 percent from the field.
However, Oats made sure to emphasize the defensive game plan on this Davis and Trimble combined for an 11-of-37 shooting clip, including 2-of-15 from deep. Meanwhile, Cadeau didn’t record a single field goal, going just 1-of-3 from the line. So instead of scoring their average of 48 combined points, the trio totaled 31 on a little under 27 percent from the field.
It turns out that UNC’s guard trio wasn’t the one to be amazed on Wednesday night as the Crimson Tide’s big three in the backcourt shined from start to finish. Preseason All-American guard Mark Sears scored a team-high 20 points on 7-of-14 from the field while Labaron Philon and Aden Holloway tallied 15 points on a combined 12-of-22 from downtown.
More specifically, Sears also dished seven assists, Philon had yet another all-around game with four assists and rebounds, three steals and a block and Holloway went 5-of-9 from behind the arc. After former starting guard Latrell Wrightsell Jr. ruptured his Achilles last game against Oregon, Oats said that Holloway would probably get an increase in minutes and be more involved in the game plan. Based on his numbers and solid performance, it appears that this is already underway.
“I thought it was great,” Oats said of Holloway’s performance. “Obviously, he’s a little upset with himself at the [five] turnovers. His shooting was unbelievable. I don’t want to say this is what we expected, to go 5-of-9 every game, but we’ve seen him shoot it like this in practice for a long time. So we know what he’s capable of shooting the ball…The shooting was huge because Wrightsell’s been our best shooter all year, so we need somebody to step up and make some threes.”
Alabama has shown a lot of positives to start the season, but there have been some inconsistencies on defense. However, this wasn’t the case for a good portion of the first half, which helped Alabama build on its lead and early momentum.
Following Wrightsell’s aforementioned season-ending injury, Oats burned guard Houston Mallette’s redshirt. Mallette, a transfer from Pepperdine now in his last year of eligibility, made the most of his first nearly three minutes on the floor in a crimson uniform, by making his lone three-point attempt and swiping two steals.
In addition to Mallette’s steals, Sears also recorded two while forward Mouhamed Dioubate swiped one as well, plus center Clifford Omoruyi logged two blocks and Philon snatched one. The Tide’s defensive effort as a whole in the first half was notable as it forced nine turnovers, which led to a 43-34 score at the break, including over 16 minutes with more points than the Tar Heels. Furthermore, much thanks to Alabama forwards Derrion Reid and Jarin Stevenson, among others, UNC’s high-scoring guard trio combined for 15 points on 5-of-20 from the field at halftime.
“[Alabama defensive assistant Brian] Adams did a great job with the defensive game plan…I thought once we got our defense set, the shots that we were willing to give up is pretty much the shots that they took, and they were contested jumpers,” Oats said. “I thought our bigs did a great job going vertical at the rim.”
Nevertheless, Oats doesn’t believe this was a perfect outing on the defensive side of the ball and looks to improve when it comes to getting back on defense quicker and more efficiently.
“It was not good in transition, particularly in the first half,” Oats said. “We had 24 transition possessions for them, and they scored 29 of their points and go 1.21 [points per possession], and then when had to go in a half-court [set], we had 39 points and 65 possessions for 0.6 [points per possession, which is like the best defense in the country type-stuff in the half court.
“The issue is we gave up so many in transition, which is what they do best. We just got to do a better job of getting back. You take away the transition, the second chance, our first-shot, half-court offense was elite tonight. So we got to get all of it figured out. The transition has got to get better. I thought the first shot was great, and then we got to be able to rebound the ball a little bit better.”
The SEC/ACC Challenge was not a difficult task overall for one league this year as the Southeastern Conference won 14-2. No. 4 Kentucky’s upset loss to Clemson and No. 2 Auburn falling to No. 9 Duke were the SEC’s only losses.
Believe it or not, South Carolina’s 5-3 record is the worst among SEC teams to start the season. Florida, Oklahoma and Tennessee are all undefeated while the other programs in the conference are absolutely thriving. That said, eight SEC teams are currently ranked as of Monday’s AP Poll.
“It’s good for our league,” Oats said of the SEC’s performance over the last two days. “I think we’ve got a really good basketball league. It was pretty good when I got here. Auburn was coming off a Final Four. Obviously, you have great traditions. Kentucky looks great. I know they took the loss last night, but they’ve done a great job so far this year. You’ve got talent across the league, so I think to play a really good league like the ACC that’s got all kinds of great traditions…It’s great.”
“I think it’s obviously good because once you get in January, all you play is the SEC. So you need to establish yourself as an unbelievably great league in the non-conference because then when we’re playing all those teams, those games go a long way.
Alabama’s No. 2 spot in the AP Poll to start the season also helped the Crimson Tide was also predicted to win the SEC Championship, plus Sears winning SEC Player of the Year and Nelson landing a spot on the Preseason All-SEC Second Team.
In other words, the pressure was and currently is on Alabama, despite currently being fourth among SEC teams in the AP Poll. Regardless, the past two days have shown that the Crimson Tide will need to be extra prepared for the rest of the conference come January.
