Charles Bediako's loss hurts, but his Alabama value has been overblown

Charles Bediako was denied his injunction against the NCAA on Monday, meaning his Alabama basketball career has come to an unceremonious end after playing five additional games with the Crimson Tide three years after he left for the NBA Draft.

Alabama went 3-2 in those games, highlighted by back-to-back wins over Texas A&M on Wednesday and then Auburn on the road on Saturday.

While adding Bediako was a nice boost for an Alabama frontcourt lacking any real depth, the outrage over his playing led to his impact being wildly overstated. You'd have thought Alabama added Victor Wembanyama with how rival fans were acting.

Did Bediako make an impact on the Crimson Tide? Absolutely. Was it as big as rival fans are pretending? Absolutely not.

Advanced numbers show Alabama has been better with Bediako off the court

The Bama Buzz's Caleb Turrentine shared some interesting numbers on Twitter last night that are eye-catching:

Alabama actually had a negative NET rating, with a demonstrably worse defense, with Bediako on the court than off. That might seem stunning because in the last season Bediako played for the Crimson Tide in 2022-23, he was the anchor of one of the nation's best defenses. That team won the SEC regular season and conference championship on the way to earning the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Those numbers are further backed up when you look at Bart Torvik's data, which was shared by Jacob Pickle:

Alabama was 12 spots worse in Bart Torvik's data in the five games Bediako played than in the 18 games he did not. Now, that statistic is a bit misleading and isn't adjusted for competition. Four of the five games the Crimson Tide played with Bediako came against opponents ranked inside Torvik's Top 30. It stands to reason that the overall numbers would be a bit worse as a result.

But again, Alabama didn't add prime Wilt Chamberlain to the roster. Bediako played well, and was certainly an upgrade over Noah Williamson, but fans are overstating his impact to make themselves feel better.

Bediako was a -9 in Alabama's three-point win over Texas A&M, for example. Perhaps they would have been a lot worse than that with Williamson or others in those minutes. Perhaps not.

His impact will be determined by how Alabama plays the rest of the season. But unless they get demonstrably better on the defensive end of the floor, it was never likely to matter much anyway.