After Alabama Basketball blew the Texas Longhorns out of their building, Nate Oats said, "We had way too many turnovers again. That’s becoming a major issue with us." Scoring 103 points suggests to some fans that even the Crimson Tide's 17 turnovers against Texas were not a major problem.
Analyzing turnovers requires multiple sets of data. One set is turnover margin; how many a team makes vs. how many turnovers the opponent makes. An even more important stat is the percentage of turnovers per possession.
During Tuesday night broadcast Jimmy Dykes stated Alabama's turnover goal should be no ore than 10 per game. Others would argue that an uptempo team like Alabama will have more possessions than average teams and 12 or even 14 turnovers in a game would not spell defeat.
One of the reason the Crimson Tide lost to Ole Miss is Alabama made 21 turnovers against the Rebels. In the seven-game win streak since, Alabama has averaged 14 turnovers.
Drilling down and looking at the entire season, data provided by Bart Torvik shows Alabama Basketball turns the ball over on 17.7% of its possessions. That rate ranks Alabama at No. 212 among Division One teams. On opponent turnovers, Alabama is lower; at a rate of 13.7%, resulting in a ranking of No. 346.
Comparing the Ole Miss and Texas games shows the extremes of when turnover problems do and do not matter. Against Ole Miss, Alabama shot 42.6%, including 25% from outside the arc. In the offensive explosion that overwhelmed Texas, Alabama shot 61.8% and 58.6% from outside the arc. The other problem for Alabama against Ole Miss is that despite all the Tide's missed shots, only four offensive rebounds were pulled down.
Will Auburn take advantage of Alabama Basketball turnovers?
Moving forward to the Auburn game, the Tigers turn the ball over on 13.74% of possessions, which ranks Bruce Pearl's team at No. 6 in the nation.
Alabama is most often not favored to beat the Tigers, though a few projections have the Crimson Tide winning. If Auburn is the better team, it is probably only a three or four-point edge and a fever-pitched Coleman Coliseum crowd should negate that advantage. The problem Nate Oats refers to as "major" is that in a close game between teams of comparable ability, 13.4% of possession turnovers versus 17.7% can determine the outcome.
Note: Additional stats provided by Sports Reference