Nate Oats stresses importance of Charles Bediako to Alabama defense

Charles Bediako has an important role on the defense for Alabama, according to Nate Oats. He’ll be a key cog as the Crimson Tide attempt to win a national championship.

Alabama ranks high in a lot of categories, thanks in large part to Bediako. Heck, Oats said Bediako is the anchor of the entire unit.

Ahead of the 2023 NCAA Tournament, Oats discussed Bediako’s role with the team.

“With the way we’ve designed our defense, Charlie, Henry, my assistant that runs the defense, came from the NBA,” Oats said. “We’re third in the country in defensive efficiency two years ago without a rim protector like him. We did it differently that year. This year with Charles at the rim, we’re trying to send everything — run them off the three-point line and run him downhill to the rim.

“Charles anchors the defense when he’s in. He affects a lot of shots. I’m looking, they shot 16 threes. They shot 26 non-rim twos. They were 3 for 26 on non-rim twos, 5 of 16 from three. They shot under 30% from the floor. A lot of that is due to Charles.”

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Oats talked about how opposing guards could basically fear Bediako down low.

“Obviously our guards have to do a good job sending the ball down into the lane,” Oats said. “Those guards from Texas A&M, most guards didn’t want to go into the rim against Charles, so they take a lot of non-rim twos. 3 of 26 they were today. That’s 11%. Great defense for us when you can force midrange twos. If you don’t have Charles at the rim to block ’em, those end up being more at the rims. Your at the rim percentage is going to be a lot higher. They finished 46% on the active rims; they didn’t get nearly as many of them. They only got 24 of those.

“Without Charles anchoring it, it’s not going to be what it is. We have a lot of other guys that are good on defense, too. Pringle is getting better. Backup center. Backs up Clowney. Neither of those are quite Charles, but they’re both getting better in their own right.”

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No. 1 Alabama opens up the first round of the NCAA Tournament against TAMU-CC or Southeast Missouri.