Alabama basketball has a deep roster, something that was made even clearer through an exhibiton slate that featured a pair of wins over potential tournament teams in Wake Forest and Memphis despite the fact that the Crimson Tide was missing four players, three of which were projected starters.
The million dollar question leading up to the season has been how Oats possibly figures out a way to keep everyone happy with enough minutes. When speaking to the media, Oats threw out an obvious idea that should come as little surprise.
"Maybe we redshirt a guy or two," said Oats. "It's going to be impossible to rotate 13 guys, so we'll have those discussions."
The most obvious redshirt candidate is freshman wing Naas Cunningham. Cunningham was once the No. 1 recruit in the 2024 class, but his development stalled a bit in his last couple years of high school basketball, though he was still a Top-50 player in his class.
Even with the injuries giving Alabama only nine available scholarship players for both scrimmages, Cunningham still struggled to find much playing time. Oats was asked specifically about the potential of redshirting Cunningham, and he gave a layered, well thought out response not just to redshirting Cunningham, but to the process as a whole.
“We haven’t made the decisions yet, but it would make sense for a guy like , because he’s going to have to get a lot stronger, tougher,” Oats said. “His upside is really high. If he can get tougher physically, put on 15 pounds, I mean, 6-8 guards that shoot it at the level he shoots it at tend to be pros."
“The redshirt thing is not just something we decide. That’s got to be a – these guys could decide, ‘No, I want to fight for my minutes, even if I’m not going to play that many minutes.’ It’s got to be a two-way deal, maybe we think it would be smart," Oats said.
Oats and Alabama went through a similar situation last season with freshman guard Kris Parker. Parker ultimately redshirted and then chose to enter the transfer portal before signing with Villanova. Alabama could have taken the redshirt off of Parker late in the season when injuries had piled up, but Oats chose what was best for the player over what might have been the best for his program in that moment.
"If we don’t have a plan for you here, it doesn’t make much sense to redshirt you either,” Oats said. “Kris Parker last year, he ended up leaving, but if I didn’t really care about Kris then I would have taken him off his redshirt when we had all the injuries in February, he definitely could have helped us. He significantly improved over the course of the year."
The most interesting part of Oats' statement initially is that he said a "player or two." Obviously, Cunningham taking a reshirt makes sense, but it's hard to see any other player doing it. I'm confident in 11 of the guys being rotational players, and the staff is high on the 12th in Aiden Sherrell who missed both exhibitions and gives Alabama great size off the bench.
Pepperdine transfer Houston Mallette could be a possibility, but it's hard for me to see him taking a redshirt after transferring in, though he would almost certainly have a clearer path to playing time in his final season of eligibility at Alabama or elsewhere next season.
The ultimate guess is that Cunningham redshirts and Oats tries to make it work with the other 12 guys.