With a crowded roster, Nate Oats plants the seeds of sacrifice to Alabama basketball

Alabama basketball has been soaking up the rat poison in recent days. The Tide was ranked No. 2 in the preseason AP Poll, the highest preseason ranking in the history of the program, and the Crimson Tide was picked by the media to win a deep SEC. Mark Sears is the preseason SEC and National Player of the Year.

Coming off of the first Final Four in school history, things are pretty great for Alabama basketball. Nate Oats loaded up the roster in the transfer portal and via the No. 2 ranked recruiting class in the country. Returning contributors like Sears, Grant Nelson, and Latrell Wrightsell make this the deepest and most talented roster the Crimson Tide has ever put on the hardwood, on paper.

Because of that, narrowing down the rotation will be incredibly difficult. Oats knows that, and he's already planting the seeds of sacrifice to his roster.

"There's going to have to be some sacrifices made to win championships," said Oats. "There's some guys that last year were big parts of what we're doing that are going to have to take fewer minutes this year in order to build our depth."

Alabama has a full 13-man roster. The early rotation will be a little easier to sort out with the injury to Chris Youngblood, meaning there's one less mouth to feed, though Youngblood will be a big part of the rotation once he recovers.

Alabama's rotation will likely fluctuate early and often as Oats looks to strike the right chords and find the lineups that work the best with one another. It's going to be fluid, and some guys will get big minutes some nights and less on others.

Oats understands the frustration that can cause, particularly with a group as talented as this one. Everyone is good enough to get minutes at this level, but there's only 200 minutes available each game, and extending past a 10-man rotation can be incredibly difficult.

Sophomore Mouhamed Dioubate is a player who fits the blue-collar mold that Oats loves, but finding minutes for him won't be easy. He's a bit of a tweener, and doesn't shoot well enough to play a big role on the wing. He's more of a natural four, and finding minutes beyond Grant Nelson and Jarin Steveson will be difficult. True freshman Derrion Reid is a three/four hybrid himself, and will be tough to keep off of the floor.

Stevenson would probably start for most programs in the country, but will likely come off the bench for the Crimson Tide. That won't be easy for a player who is on NBA Draft radars.

But Oats is taking the right approach. Because even in the NIL era, winning matters a whole lot. And for guys who want to play at the next level, putting up quality tape in the minutes you play matters more than playing 30+ minutes per night.

"It's more about what you do in your minutes than it is about how many minutes you play," said Oats. Is our offensive efficency better with you on the floor than when you're note? Is our defensive efficiency better with you on the floor?"

Oats and the staff will be able to pick and choose minutes based on effort and defense, a luxury that he didn't have last season on a thinner roster when the Tide's defense fell from elite to mediocre. This season, the majority of the roster can score. But the players willing to defend, to hustle, dive for loose balls, set quality screens, and do all the little things will get prioritized.

This group has the right stuff, the right combination of veteran leadership and talented youth to mesh together and do something special, something that has never been done in the history of the program.

This year, just getting to the Final Four won't be good enough. This team wants, and is capable of, a national championship.