Why did most Alabama basketball players skip voluntary shootaround before NCAA Tournament loss?
SAN DIEGO — Alabama basketball coach Nate Oats was excited for Jahvon Quinerly to have a chance to play against Notre Dame considering what he showed at the voluntary shootaround Thursday night.
"Shot it really well," Oats said. "I thought he was ready to play, and three minutes into the game he gets the knee injury, can't play the rest of the game."
That was problematic on multiple levels. Quinerly was the only player who went to the voluntary shootaround that night. The next morning, there were only three players who showed up to another voluntary shootaround. Jaden Shackelford and Keon Ellis were the two others whom Oats listed.
So most on the team chose not to take part in either chance to practice shooting before the Crimson Tide's opening game in the NCAA Tournament.
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More of the team attending wouldn't have necessarily translated to Alabama defeating Notre Dame on Friday. Alabama lost 78-64. But it's not a good reflection of the overall dedication of this team that finished the season on a four-game losing streak.
"Our main guys got the most of the shots up, got bulk of those shooting times," Oats said. "But JQ was the only one that came last night."
Oats said most teams gave up their 20-minute shooting times, but Alabama decided to keep its time and make it voluntary.
Alabama made 26 of 64 shots from the field (40.6%) against Notre Dame and was 8 of 24 (33.3%) from 3-point range. The Crimson Tide made 4 of 7 free throws (57.1%).
"We kind of made it voluntary because we wanted guys to be smart making sure their legs were fresh," Oats said. "And some guys had gone the night before and he didn't. So then he went. We had shooting times at a high school gym every night here because our guys get in the gym a lot on their own back home. He shot it really well last night."
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Oats said that he felt the maturity of the team wasn't quite what it was of the 2020-21 team.
"So the buy-in was there for most of them most of the time," Oats said. "We definitely didn't have the experience Notre Dame had with their guys that have played a lot of games. Just maturity, experience, those things go a long ways.
Contact Alabama reporter Nick Kelly: nkelly@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter: @_NickKelly.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Alabama basketball players skipped NCAA tourney voluntary shootaround
