Alabama Basketball: John Petty key to winning despite a shooting slump

Alabama Basketball: John Petty is in a shooting slump. The rest of what he does on the court is key to Crimson Tide wins.

Against Iona, Alabama Basketball could not depend on much offense from John Petty Jr. Petty finished the game with 10 points but it took 13 field goal and eight free throw attempts to generate the points. He was 1-for-5 outside the arc and missed five of his free throw attempts.

Some Alabama basketball fans were so frustrated with Petty, they hoped Nate Oats would bench him. Instead, Petty played 30 minutes in the game. In many of those minutes, his offensive struggle clearly frustrated the Tide’s third-leading scorer on the season.

That frustration did not linger when Petty transitioned to defense. Petty had two blocks, a steal and played solid defense throughout the game. Petty was the main reason Iona’s second-leading scorer, Asante Gist was not a scoring threat in the second half. Petty was also one of the guys who clamped down Isaiah Ross’ offense from 15 first-half points to just four in the second half.

Five of Petty’s team-leading seven rebounds were defensive rebounds. Without his defense and the less noticed stats, the Alabama Crimson Tide might not have prevailed against Iona. Talking about Petty’s defensive contribution after the game, Nate Oats said,

"I thought he played really hard. He won the Hard Hat Award. He had more Blue-Collar Points than anybody. He was all over the glass. He led us in rebounding with seven.He played really hard, did what we needed to to win and let’s move on to the next game and he’ll play a lot better in the next game."

Nate Oats valuing and maintaining his team’s focus on blue-collar basketball is a significant reason for the Tide’s success in Oats’ second season. Winning a game’s blue-collar award is a big deal for the Crimson Tide.

John Petty had three-point shooting slumps during much of the second half of the season. In the eight games leading up to the SEC Tournament, Petty averaged 31.3 percent. That average was helped by two games when he was a combined 4-for-6. In the three SEC Tournament games, plus the Iona game, his three-point shooting has continued to drop and is at 26.9 percent. His shooting woes are a problem for Petty and the Alabama Basketball team that depends on his offensive output.

The problem should not obscure the fact Petty is still helping his team win. Nate Oats expects Petty will snap out of his scoring slump by putting less scoring pressure on himself. Alabama basketball fans are looking forward to that happening.

The next Tide, NCAA opponent, Maryland is under-the-radar good. The NCAA Second Round game is 7:45 PM CST Monday night and can be seen on TNT.