The Alabama basketball team was successful in its overseas trip this week, finishing the tour with a 3-0 record. The squad traveled to Europe to take on some international competition and, until Friday, was not even challenged.
The Crimson Tide rolled into Barcelona and defeated Spain’s Select team by a score of 108-64 to start the week.
After traveling to Paris, France, the Tide ran away from Lithuania’s national B team by a margin of nearly sixty points. The team reached the century mark for the second consecutive contest, winning 120-61.
On Friday, Alabama basketball received its toughest challenge of the week. They took on the Chinese national team, who is no slouch in international play, ranking as the no. 29 team in FIBA. While this game wasn’t as lopsided as the previous two, the Crimson Tide were very impressive in defeating China 89-77. The game was competitive throughout the second half, but Alabama enjoyed double digit leads for much of the 4th quarter, fending off several runs by their opponent.
Freshman Brandon Miller may be blossoming into a superstar. While international exhibitions are hardly a reliable predictor of success, Miller consistently asserted himself on the offensive end of the floor. He led the Tide in scoring every game and averaged over 22 points per game for the trip.
Former Texas Tech transfer guard Nimari Burnett also played well. Burnett missed last season with an injury, but appeared healthy this week, scoring double figures in each of the Tide’s games.
Freshman Noah Clowney looked good in the frontcourt, while veteran Darius Miles and Ohio transfer Mark Sears bolstered a backcourt that is still missing injured point guard Jahvon Quinerly.
Nate Oats will have a difficult task in getting this roster to mesh, as it consists primarily of freshmen and transfers (or former transfers). As a result, Coach Oats regularly mixed up lineups and rotations in an attempt to discover which groupings of players had the most chemistry.
Although this team doesn’t have much experience playing with one another just yet, the talent is certainly palpable.
(All statistics from Alabama Men’s Basketball Twitter page).