What Alabama losses to both NCAAT finalists say, and don't say, about the Tide | Goodbread
Only six teams got the better of Alabama basketball in 37 games this season.
Two of them − San Diego State and UConn − clash Monday night in the NCAA Tournament championship game.
What does that say about the Crimson Tide? Nothing, really. Consider it more telling of the Aztecs and Huskies than anything about the Crimson Tide. There are no moral victories for a team that had the potential to play well beyond the Sweet 16 round that proved to be Alabama's undoing. And if there were, they wouldn't come in the form of another school's subsequent success.
But it does speak to the mettle and grit that was required to bring SDSU and UConn together with a national title at stake. Their respective wins over the Crimson Tide came under very different circumstances, and at very different times of the season, but both served notice of tournament staying power. The Aztecs, of course, played a defensive gem of a game to oust Alabama from the NCAA Tournament, 71-64, in Louisville just two weeks ago. They buried mid-range jumpers against Alabama over and over again, the very shot UA coach Nate Oats won't stand for in his offense, and sank another one at the buzzer to top Florida Atlantic in a Final Four matchup on Saturday.
If the Aztecs cut down the final net, there's a good chance a game-winning 15-footer will be what sends them up the ladder.
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UConn's win over Alabama went back much further, and came with a simpler explanation. The Huskies hammered UA 82-67 on Nov. 25 in the Phil Knight Invitational in Portland, Ore., just a day after Alabama had dispatched Michigan State in the same tourney. UConn's formula was forcing 21 Alabama turnovers and limiting the Crimson Tide to 16 3-point attempts, barely half of Oats' preferred total. The Huskies won that tournament with three wins in four days.
That's two pretty impressive feathers in the caps of both of these championship combatants. They might've been bracket busters, but it shouldn't be all that surprising two teams good enough to knock off Alabama have done well at tournament time. Alabama's other four losses − Gonzaga, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas A&M − included a Sweet 16 team in UT, and another in the Zags that hung around until an Elite Eight loss to UConn.
Meanwhile, the transfer portal and NBA Draft declarations have already decimated the Alabama roster before the Aztecs and Huskies have even tipped off. Eight scholarship players are either out of eligibility, in the portal, or are draft-declared. Oats has to completely reconstitute his 2023-24 team, a task that could be made a bit easier if a player or two decides to withdraw their name from the draft.
It can be done; in fact, Oats did it just a year ago. From the standpoints of recruiting and on-floor success, Alabama basketball is on firmer ground than it's been in a long time. Oats can clearly attract elite talent, and the team has now reached the NCAA Tournament three consecutive years for the first time since reaching five in a row from 2002-06.
But as good as Alabama was at 31-6, roster turnover has already ceased that team's existence, like a comet that streaked across the sky and faded before it could be fully appreciated. No more than a few players on next season's Alabama team will have played in the losses to two national finalists, so it's not as though that experience will have much carryover value.
As for validation, Alabama won't find it in the fact that it lost to both teams in the final.
Those losses say more about the teams still playing.
Reach Chase Goodbread at cgoodbread@gannett.com. Follow on Twitter @chasegoodbread.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: What Alabama losses to both March Madness finalists say about the Tide
