Nate Oats is a psychopath when it comes to non-conference scheduling for Alabama. That's been obvious for years. It has perhaps never been as obvious as it is this season.
After a cupcake opener against North Dakota that saw the Crimson Tide win in a rout, these are the next four games on Alabama's schedule:
11/8: at No. 5 St. John's (Madison Square Garden)
11/13: vs. No. 1 Purdue
11/19: at No. 17 Illinois (United Center)
11/24: vs. No. 21 Gonzaga (Las Vegas)
Four ranked teams in a row, including back-to-back against top-five opponents. Winning one of the next four will take a monumental effort. Winning two would be incredible and serve to put the Crimson Tide on the shortlist of National Championship contenders.
It's not out of the realm of possibility that Alabama loses all four. Only one of the four is at home, and that's against the No. 1 team in the nation. They'll play two road games, starting this Saturday against St. John's and in two weeks against Illinois in Chicago. The Gonzaga game is the first matchup of this year's Players Era Festival in Las Vegas.
In fact, KenPom projects Alabama to lose all four of these games.
Alabama's chances of winning, per KenPom:
St. John's: 31%
Purdue: 41%
Illinois: 27%
Gonzaga: 34%
You can take some of that with a grain of salt. KenPom isn't super reliable at the beginning of the season. There's a lot of projection going into the rankings right now with painfully few data points from this year. KenPom is lower on Alabama than the pollsters, with the Crimson Tide ranked No. 24 in his rankings but No. 15 in the AP Poll.
The results are not as important as it is for Alabama to get better in the next four
Oats schedules a brutal non-conference schedule because he wants his team to get exposed and experience immediate adversity. He doesn't believe playing a bunch of cupcakes does you any good. He wants to know what he has by the time the SEC schedule starts.
That's going to mean losses. It's imperative for Alabama fans to maintain a level head during his four-game stretch, regardless of what happens. It's a brutal schedule, and Alabama could very well emerge from it at 1-4. That doesn't mean this is a bad team by any means.
If KenPom is correct, it would be the first four-game losing streak in the regular season for Alabama under Oats. Alabama lost four games in a row to close out the 2021-2022 season, dropping the final two games of the regular season, the opening game of the SEC Tournament, and then getting bounced by Notre Dame in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
The closest comparison for this upcoming schedule for Alabama is the 2023-24 season, where Alabama lost three consecutive games to Purdue, Creighton, and Arizona. There was a lot of concern about that team at that point as they dropped to just 6-5 overall. They ended up making the Final Four.
The process means a lot more than the results this early in the season, particularly against four opponents who will almost certainly maintain Quad 1 status all year long. Sure, it would be nice to win a game or two or even three, but the most important thing during this stretch for the Crimson Tide is that they get better.
They will. The schedule will give them no choice.