When Alabama is at its best, the Crimson Tide overwhelms opponents with a barrage of three-point shots. The Crimson Tide made 19 threes in the 90-65 thumping of the Texas Tech Red Raiders. The 35-point margin was unprecedented for an NCAA Tournament Round of 32 4-seed vs. 5-seed game.
According to ESPN, only three teams have made 19 or more three-pointers in an NCAA Tournament game. Alabama holds the Big Dance record with 25 made threes against BYU last season.
The Crimson Tide shot 45% on its 42 three-point attempts against the Red Raiders. Texas Tech entered the game as the better three-point-shooting team. Against a stifling Alabama defensive effort, the Red Raiders shot 16% from outside the arc.
All of college basketball knows Alabama can explode making threes. Alabama is also known for not being good at defending threes. In that stat, Alabama began Sunday night's game ranked No. 195 among all Division One teams.
For Alabama, being good at what it does best is expected. Being good at the worst team skill is unexpected. After the game, Oats credited assistant Brian Adams for the defensive game plan. He also pointed out the defensive performance of Latrell Wrightsell. Wrightsell led Alabama in scoring with 24 points, but his defense on Christian Anderson was what most impressed. Like Labaron Philon, Anderson is a Third-Team All-American. Against Alabama, Anderson was 1-of-7 from three and 2-of-11 overall. For the season, Anderson had shot 42.3% from three.
Next Friday in Chicago, Michigan will be so heavily favored that there will be no predictions of an Alabama upset. Don't try to convince Nate Oats to believe that. Talking about Sunday's win, Oats said, "If we guard like we did tonight, especially at the point of attack, we can play with any team in the country."
Alabama will relish the underdog role against Michigan
Knocking off Michigan will be a challenge, but Oats explained how simple he believes it is to execute at a high level: "When you lose yourself in a game, lock into playing defense, making the effort plays, getting stops, getting rebounds, that stuff takes care of itself."
Alabama did all that against Texas Tech and the Crimson Tide will expect to do the same in Chicago.