Opening statement…
“Oklahoma came ready to play and obviously didn’t. We told our guys coming in they had a bunch of one-possession losses and are much better than their record indicated. They were ready to go and I didn’t think we were. They jumped on us from the beginning and we never really got back in it. They shot almost 70% from three and we were 70% from the free-throw line. We didn't shoot well, they shot it great. It's due to their defense and our defense both. If you give them open shots, they are going to make them. Sherfield, we had no answer for him. He’s really good, we knew that coming in, but we obviously didn’t do a good enough job. And then you can’t have guys like Jalen Hill also – I mean, he had 26 and eight. Tanner Groves. They were good all the way across the board. It’s a good team. You look at their games, they were right in it with all the top-25 teams they’ve played – Texas, Baylor, Kansas, everybody. They’re a skilled team. They make open shots if you give them to you. We weren’t hitting. They shot better from three than we did from the free-throw line tonight. To be honest with you, I don’t think we’ve been playing great for a couple weeks. We definitely have lost our edge a little bit, and they got us at the right time. We’ve gotta figure out how to get it back.”
Benny’s breakdown: It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to deduce that not only did Alabama play a bad game, but it was also one of the worst efforts of the season. The Crimson Tide couldn’t do anything right it seemed as Oklahoma shot 57.6% from the field, 69.2% from behind the 3-point line and 84.2% from the charity stripe. The loss will drop Alabama in Monday’s rankings and will surely raise questions about where the team’s maturity stands after Saturday’s game. But above all of that, Alabama will likely bump down to a No. 2 seed as we head into March.
On why he thinks his message after the Mississippi State game was not received…
“I don’t know. One, we’re on the road, so we didn’t have energy behind the crowd to get you into it. But if you’re relying on crowd energy to get you in, you’re playing for the wrong reasons. Two, I think we got away with it a little bit in the last game. We were still able to sneak out a win even when we didn’t come out ready to go. So we tried to tell our guys mature teams learn from a win. We obviously weren’t mature enough to learn from a win. Hopefully, a loss will help us wake up a little bit. I will say this, it wasn’t this bad, but when we did win the SEC two years ago, we came to Oklahoma and took a loss in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge on the road. It kind of got us refocused a little bit for SEC play. This is a big game because I think this has significance for postseason seeding and all that stuff. But it doesn’t have any effect on SEC standings, which is the only good thing to come out of this. Hopefully, we can get woke up with a loss out of conference. But no, it’s not good because we needed the SEC to do well in this Big 12 Challenge. We obviously didn’t do our job on it. To me, these games are a big deal when it comes down to seeding in the NCAA Tournament, and we didn’t do very well.”
Benny’s breakdown: Alabama failed a rare maturity test on Saturday. Coming into its road trip to Norman, Oats said that the road trip to Oklahoma was a chance for the team to learn from a win after a slow first half against Mississippi State earlier this week. Alabama came out just as sluggish as it did on Wednesday and instead of finding a way to claw back into the game, the Crimson Tide rolled over as it was outrebounded, lost the points in the paint battle and didn’t record nearly as many assists. The only positive is that Saturday is an out-of-conference loss but with a tough stretch coming up with road trips to Tennessee and Auburn, Alabama will need to find its form quickly.
On if he was surprised by the defensive effort that yielded 93 points…
“Yeah. I mean, we’ve been fifth in the country in defensive efficiency coming into this game. This wasn’t a typical showing by us. But our effort’s gotta be better. We knew Sherfield was good. We didn’t follow the game plan on Sherfield well. I think the starting group was obviously not good to start the game two games in a row now. And they made shots. You’ve gotta give them a lot of credit. Sherfield goes 4-of-5 from three. You look at our team. We went 13-of-21 at the free-throw line. Sherfield’s 80% from three, and we’re 62 percent at the line. He was obviously locked in, ready, and you could see. Teams are gonna be ready to play against us. Now, our ranking’s gonna drop, obviously, after taking a loss like this. But at the time, we were ranked second in the country. They stormed the floor after the game. The team’s gonna be ready, the fans are gonna be ready, everybody’s gonna be ready. Our guys haven’t been accustomed to being ranked second in the country like this late in the year before. I don’t they realize we’re gonna get everybody’s A game. Yeah, our defense was nowhere close to where it needed to be to compete in this game.”
Benny’s Breakdown: Alabama was ranked No. 4 in defensive efficiency according to KenPom and after the thumping it took against Oklahoma, it slid down to No. 6. The move down is deserved as Alabama gave up more than 90 points for the second time this season and yielded the most points in a half to an Oklahoma team that averages 67.2 points per game. That puts the Sooners at No. 289 in the country in scoring offense while Alabama ranks No. 11 averaging 83.2 points per game as was held under 70 points for the fourth time this season.
On how Alabama can get its edge back…
“I think we’ve gotta play hard. After we lost to Gonzaga, we kind of sat there in team room the next day and asked the guys what they wanted to be known as. Words like tough, gritty, blue collar, max effort, hard playing, unselfish. I don’t think we were the toughest team, we weren’t the grittiest, we weren’t the most blue-collar, we didn’t play the hardest tonight. All the stuff we say we wanted to be that I felt like we got back after the Gonzaga loss, we’re kind of right back to zero on that stuff. So we’ve gotta figure out how bad do we wanna be that again. You’ve gotta give Oklahoma a ton of credit. For a team to be 2-6, go through as many close losses. The coaching staff’s done a great job keeping them together, keeping them motivated. They played a lot harder than we did today.”
Benny’s Breakdown: Alabama was none of the characteristics Oats talked about in the post-game press conference. Over the last few weeks, Alabama relied on its abundance of talent to ensure a victory, especially on its road trips to Arkansas, Vanderbilt and Missouri. Rylan Griffen said after the game Alabama felt it was “untouchable” and that Oats continued predicted a loss like this may come. Now that the loss has happened, the country is about to see how Alabama is going to respond. It’s a crucial test the Crimson Tide must pass with flying colors if it hopes to make a deep run in March. If not, this year’s Alabama team will be remembered as a talented group that didn’t live up to expectations.
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