The old adage of "defense wins championships" is an overused term in football and has been proven to be inaccurate multiple times. LSU in 2019 and Alabama in 2020 had historic offenses and merely good defenses, and both cakewalked to dominant title runs.
But in college basketball, defense does still win championships. And through 19 games, Alabama has not been good enough on that end of the floor to be a serious contender for a national championship.
Much has been made about the Crimson Tide's shooting, particularly the struggles from three-point range. But Alabama ranks No. 2 in offensive efficiency per KenPom. The offense has been more than good enough. Defensively, however, the Tide sits 46th in the country in the same rating system. It's a big improvement from last year, but still a far cry from where Alabama needs to be in order to be the last team standing in early April.
Nate Oats is considered an offensive-minded coach because of his wide-open system that gives players a lot of freedom. Alabama plays up-tempo and shoots a lot of threes. It's a system that players enjoy playing in and people enjoy watching on T.V. But there's a reason that Oats constantly harps on defense.
He was apoplectic about Alabama's defensive showing in the second half of Tuesday's win over Vanderbilt. The Crimson Tide played an excellent first half on that end of the floor, but as has been the case for the majority of the season, couldn't maintain that consistency for a full 40 minutes.
A chunk of the second half looked like shootaround for the Commodores; they got wide-open three after wide-open three and clawed their way back into a game they had no business being in, cutting Alabama's lead to just eight points with under four minutes to play after trailing by as many as 19.
This Alabama team has the capability of being better on the defensive end than where they are currently ranked. They'll have to be to make a deep run in March. And Oats knows it.
At some point during the NCAA Tournament, the shots aren't going to fall at the clip you want them to. A game is going to come down to your ability to get key stops when you have to. Can Alabama do that?
KenPom's database goes back to 1997. Since then, no team has won the national championship with a defensive ranking outside the Top 25. The lowest-ranked defensive team to win the title was Baylor in 2021, which ranked 22nd. However, their defensive rating of 91.1 would rank them 5th this season.
The worst defensive rating for a national champion in the KenPom era was Villanova in 2018 at 94.0 (11th in the country that season). Alabama's is currently 98.0.
We saw Alabama make it all the way to the Final Four last season with a defensive rating that ranked 111th in the nation. We know the Crimson Tide can get there. But since last year's team broke through that glass ceiling for the program, merely making the Final Four is no longer the goal.
This team has the talent to win the whole thing. That's the goal for Oats and his team this year. But unless they improve on the defensive end of the floor, history tells us that Alabama is going to come up short.