It was an abysmal offensive outing for Alabama basketball in a home loss on Tuesday night to the Ole Miss Rebels. The Tide managed a season-low 64 points, breaking a streak of scoring 70+ points for 53 consecutive games.
The last time Alabama's offense looked that inept was when it went 3/27 from three in a Sweet 16 loss to San Diego State two years ago.
Nate Oats mentioned after the game that he was concerned with the Crimson Tide's offense. A lot of Alabama fans have been for most of the season because of the struggle shooting threes. Shooting threes is a huge part of Oats' system, and right now the Crimson Tide is one of the worst teams in the nation at it.
That didn't much matter through the season's first 16 games, however, because Alabama ranked 11th in offensive rebounding rate and rebounded more than a third of its misses into second-chance opportunities. That allowed it to be the nation's 2nd most efficient offense, per KenPom.
But if Alabama doesn't hit the glass and struggles shooting the ball at the same time, you get what we saw on Tuesday night against Ole Miss. Couple that with a season-high 21 turnovers, and the offense was a complete mess. Alabama's lucky it played a pretty good game on the defensive end or they probably get blown out on their home floor.
Oats has spoken about the struggles shooting and believes that it is fixable if Alabama can get the right guys taking the shots. In order to get the right guys taking those shots, those guys need to play more minutes on the court together.
Alabama got off to a horrendous offensive start against the Rebels, turning it over on its first three possessions and seven of its first 10. That allowed Ole Miss to stay in the game and believe it could win despite its own struggles on the offensive end.
A better start, and Alabama probably pushes its lead to double digits and cruises to a weeknight home win over a Top 25 opponent.
The Crimson Tide's most used starting five this season has been: Mark Sears, Labaron Philon, Jarin Stevenson, Grant Nelson, and Cliff Omoruyi. Sears is the only real shooter in that group, and even he is well below his standards this season. Part of that is because he is consistently on the floor as the only respected shooter and it is much harder for him to get good looks as a result.
Philon, Stevenson, and Nelson are all below 30% from three. They can all make shots, but they haven't done it at a high enough percentage for defenses to respect it.
Two of Alabama's three best shooters are coming off the bench. I would propose inserting both of them into the starting lineup to see if the Tide can get off to quicker starts on offense. Replacing Philon with Aden Holloway and Stevenson with Chris Youngblood would allow the floor to be spaced better and for the Tide to get better quality looks from three or at the rim.
Philon appears to be hitting the freshman wall and has scored in single digits in three straight games. Moving him to the bench might help him reset mentally and take on a bit of a different role.
Holloway was the one bright spot against Ole Miss, scoring a team-high 15 points on 5-of-6 shooting. He's now Alabama's leading three-point shooter at over 39%, a number that continues creeping up. Over the last five games, Holloway is 15/32 (46.8%) from three.
More impressively, Holloway has improved greatly in his ability to score inside the arc. He's shooting 65% on two's and has upped his at-the-rim percentage from 35% last season at Auburn to 55% this season. His floater in the lane has been a real weapon, too.
I would like to see Holloway in the Latrell Wrightsell role with the Crimson Tide getting him into the corner and working to find him open looks from three. He should never have a game where he is only attempting two threes like he did against Ole Miss.
Stevenson's effort every night deserves applause, but his continued struggles putting the ball in the basket is a big negative for this team. Nothing emphasized that more than his blown dunk late in the first half.
Alabama would give up some size with Youngblood starting over him, but that's okay. Youngblood is a great defender and will not get bullied by bigger guys. Now, for this to work the Crimson Tide needs Youngblood to shoot like he has historically and not how he has so far this season.
Youngblood came to Tuscaloosa coming off of three consecutive seasons shooting over 40% from three. This year through eight games, he's only shooting 28% and was 2/8 against the Rebels. His ankle injury that held him out the first nine games hasn't helped, but if he can creep that percentage up and be a real threat, then Alabama's offense will become more efficient overall.
I would expect some sort of change to the starting group to take place when the Tide take the court in Lexington on Saturday. Oats knows that the status quo coming off of that performance isn't possible. Rewarding Holloway and getting Youngblood into the starting group where he figured to be when he transferred should give Alabama a much needed shot in the arm offensively.