Alabama Crimson Tide offensive frustrations and defensive letdowns

On Tuesday night the Alabama Crimson Tide went to Gainesville in need of a bounce-back win. Instead Nate Oats' got bounced around by a more aggressive, more physical, more focused Florida team. The Gators won big with the Crimson Tide offering meager opposition. Effectively the game was over before the end of the first half. In a game in which the Crimson Tide was outclassed in every way, the final score was 105-87

There were just two bright spots for Nate Oats' team. One was that Florida was superb in its defense of Mark Sears. He scored 33 points anyway. The other was in 36-plus minutes of play for both, Sears and Aaron Estrada, the Tide duo turned the ball over a total of only four times.

Alabama Basketball Shooting Trend

It is not true that Nate Oats' teams live and die by the three-ball. But when the Tide, for whatever reason, is not making shots outside the arc, other components defensively and offensively must be effective. That did not happen Tuesday night in Gainesville.

Against the Gators, Alabama was 5-for-23 outside the arc. Add to that dismal stat that Alabama missed its last 14, threes in Saturday's loss to Tennessee, giving the Tide a three-point percentage of 13.5% on its last 37 attempts. Credit to the Vols and Gators for their defensive efforts against Bama, but 37 shots are enough to define a trend and the trend is not good for the Crimson Tide.

Going into the Florida game, Alabama was holding on to a projected NCAA Tournament 4-seed. It will slide to one of the lower 5-seeds or a 6-seed in most Bracketology projections

The Crimson Tide must pick up the pieces and scramble back to being one of the SEC's top teams. It was not near that level against Florida. Adding to the challenge is doubt about the injury status of Rylan Griffen. After the game, Nate Oats said, "Rylan has a calf injury and is getting an MRI tomorrow. That's all I know on that."

In a classic example of an understatement, the Crimson Tide head coach said, "We let our offensive frustrations lead to some defensive letdowns."

In March, against quality opposition, there is no room for offensive frustrations and defensive letdowns.