New Reasons
Mark Sears is unstoppable. Imagine for a moment you are a college coach faced with the task of coming up with a defensive game plan to beat Alabama. The first question you have to answer is, how do you stop Mark Sears? He has the fastest first step in all of college basketball. Let’s say you try to guard him playing man-to-man. You put your quickest, lankiest defender on him. Sears is so fast he’s going to blow by anyone. So, when he does that, another defender has to leave his man and Sears is either going to get a layup and draw a foul or kick it to the open player. Or, if the defense is sagging to help, he might kick it out to one of their never ending battalion of fantastic three-point snipers for an open look. Maybe you foul him and send him to the free throw line. Except Sears has been averaging 85 percent from the line for all 5 years he’s been at Alabama. You could try a zone. Sears shoots 33 percent from three and is so fast he is bound to draw a crowd of defenders off the dribble. He’s a great passer, so he will read the floor and find the open player. He averages 5 assists a game and scores within the natural flow of the offense. He doesn't force bad shots up. And Alabama has the personnel around him to shoot anyone out of a zone. Mark Sears is a question to which there are no right answers.
Their biggest weakness doesn’t seem to be a weakness. I wondered how Alabama might do against a team filled with really outstanding big men. They are arguably better around the perimeter driving and shooting than they are kicking the ball to one of the gigantic fellas in the paint. Saint Mary’s, also known as The Lithuanian National Team, has a bunch of large center types who are talented and physical. Two 7’1 kids and a very smooth, strong 6’10 kid. This should have been the sort of team that Alabama struggled against. But they didn’t. The main reason being Rutgers transfer Clifford Omoruyi. He’s been an absolute force of nature inside. In the opener against Robert Morris he was 8-8 from the field racking up 17 points and 5-7 against Saint Mary’s netting 10 huge points. It’s rather inaccurate to describe his shooting as being “from the field”. He is almost comedically strong. He practically pushes his 6'11, 250 pound frame as close to the basket as he wants to go. Of his 27 points so far, all of them except one free throw have been on dunks.
Rapper Will.I.am said it best in the Black Eyed-Peas song “My Humps” when he exclaimed “defense wins championships”. So far, so good. They let Robert Morris hang for a while in the first game, but when the time came to either make stops or end up having images of your players with their heads in their hands sobbing during the “One Shining Moment” montage video, Alabama stepped up. They have given up some points, as most high-octane offenses do, but when it came time to shut the other team down, they make the plays they had to in order to win.
Grant Nelson is back and healthy. Robert Morris was a seriously underseeded 15 after winning a tough Horizon League this year. They gave Alabama a genuine game. The Crimson Tide seemed out of rhythm on offense for long stretches, particularly midway through the second half. The team had just come off a 22-point drubbing by Florida in the SEC tournament and it was starting to seem like this team was primed to be this year’s version of Purdue. With the game tighter than a pair of thrift store jeans, Nate Oats turned to Grant Nelson, who was recovering from a knee injury and was not expected to play unless absolutely necessary. Nelson, a star for Alabama who seems to be able to do everything except properly grow a mustache, gave them a huge spark in his seven minutes on the floor, helping them stave off a tough-minded Robert Morris team. He logged 28 minutes on Saturday and looked fully recovered in scoring 12 points and grabbing 8 boards against the Gaels.
They have been playing top-tier teams all year. They played the toughest schedule in the country in order to prepare for these next four games. Alabama has shown they can beat anyone. There were no off-nights this year. The schedule was built so when it came to primetime games against teams like BYU, Duke, and anyone else in their way, they would be capable of rising to the moment. They are ready.
Original Reasons
The amount of offensive talent on the roster is almost embarrassing. Sears, Nelson, Holloway and Philon all average double digits. Beyond that, there is a seemingly endless pool of folks who can come in off the bench and light up the scoreboard in every imaginable way. They average 91 points per game, 5 more than anyone in the country.
They were extremely successful in a historically outstanding conference. This year’s SEC has drawn comparisons to some of the greatest conferences ever. They are frequently mentioned amongst the likes of the 1985 Big East Conference which sent 3 teams to the Final Four. As of today, Joe Lunardi has 13 of the 16 teams in the conference making the NCAA tournament.
I believe it was William “The Refrigerator” Perry who once quipped “defense wins championships”. They play at the fastest pace of any team in the nation, which means they are going to give up a ton of points. But, as they showed in their road win over the #1 ranked Auburn Tigers last week, when they need to get a stop, they get one. They played the third highest scoring team in the nation last night and held Kentucky to 70, 16 below their average.
They thrived against the toughest schedule in the country. This year’s “Denny Crum Award for Masochistic Scheduling” goes to the Crimson Tide. Hands down. Not only did they play in the best conference in the country, they went out of conference and played Houston, Purdue, Illinois, Oregon, North Carolina and Creighton. Nearly every game they played this season was against a team that will be in the NCAA Tournament next week.
Mark Sears. Give me a choice of any player in the country who I want to have the ball in a crucial moment and I’m taking Sears. The kid has a flair for coming up huge in big moments and his game winning floater at the buzzer in overtime at Auburn last week was undoubtedly the play of the year so far.
Keith Spillett