Alabama expecting Creighton's best in first true road game

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Alabama is in the middle of a tough, 3-game stretch. The Crimson Tide (6-3) is coming off a 92-86 loss to now-No. 3 Purdue in Toronto and will look to rebound against No. 8 Creighton later this evening in Omaha in what will be UA’s first true road game.

While Alabama is no longer ranked, head coach Nate Oats (who is 5-6 against teams ranked in the top 10 of the AP Top 25 Poll) thinks his team is coming off its best game, despite a loss.

“We’ve been telling our guys, ‘We’re close. We’re right there,’” Oats said. “You look at the metrics – efficiency numbers, offense, defense, the whole thing combined – we’re right in there. Top 10 some places, top 25. But you’ve got to do things to actually win the games. 

“Our resume is not a top 25 team right now. We’re 6-3, and we’ve got three losses against good teams that we played tough. But we’ve got to figure out ways to win games. Right now, we’re not figuring out ways to win the games when we need to. That’s been our biggest talking points is we’ve just got to figure out how to win some of these close games we’re in. 

“Offensively, we’ve been good. Defensively is where our biggest issue was.”

Alabama will attempt to bounce back from its third defeat of the season against Creighton, who has a 100-9 home record versus non-conference foes under coach Greg McDermott.

The Bluejays (8-2) play a similar style to the Tide in that they shoot a lot of threes. Creighton is making 12.1 threes per game, which ranks No. 2 in the nation. Alabama, meanwhile, is fourth in the country with 11.6 treys per game. Bluejays guard Baylor Scheierman, a transfer from South Dakota State, is making 3.2 threes per contest, which ranks No. 20 in the nation. 

And similar to UA’s last opponent, Purdue, Creighton will deploy a center that stands at 7-foot-1. Senior Ryan Kalkbrenner averages 15.8 points and 6.7 rebounds per game and has 22 blocked shots this year. Beyond the arc and the low post will be points of emphasis today.

“Similar to us, they take a lot of threes,” Oats said. “I think they’re second in the country right now. They make over 12 threes a game. They get them in similar ways to us, they get them in some different ways than us, but we’ve got to do a great job guarding the 3-point line.

“The second game in a row there’s a 7-footer on the other side that’s good inside. He’s obviously not as big as (Zach) Edey, but he’s pretty good in his own regard. … Kalkbrenner is good. He’s tough to guard one-on-one in there. 

“We can’t be giving threes up as much as possible to some of their better shooters. Our guys got to be locked into what we’re doing to guard the 3-point line, and then we’ve got to rebound the ball a little bit better. They’re a pretty good rebounding team. We’ve got to be a better rebounding team on defense.”

Alabama is playing three straight top 10 non-conference opponents for the first time in program history, which is by design by the fifth-year head coach. Oats wants his team to be tested before league play begins next month, and he expects another difficult challenge against a ranked foe that is coming off a 79-64 road loss to UNLV this past Wednesday.

“I think we’re close to where we need to be,” Oats said. “This is a quality team, and I like playing good teams to figure out how good we are compared to the best in the country and we’re going to find that out here Saturday. 

“And we’re going to get Creighton’s best, in my opinion. We had it with Purdue, who just lost to Northwestern. I felt like we got Purdue’s best game of the year. Creighton just lost to UNLV. I’m sure they’ve got some very locked-in, focused practices here since the UNLV game, and I think we’ll probably get Creighton’s best effort, which is fine. 

“It will make us even better in the long run.”

Alabama-Creighton will tip off at 7 p.m. CT at CHI Health Center Omaha. It will air on FOX.

Oats on Alabama’s effort, physicality vs. Purdue…

“I thought our effort was great. I didn’t think our effort was the issue. It was more execution, following the scouring board. Our physicality, I thought, we obviously were too physical because we had a lot of fouls called on us. So I don’t think the issue was with effort and physicality. I thought it was execution. I told the team we’ve got to be both. We can’t just play hard. You’ve got to play hard and execute. You’ve got to use your IQ. You can’t just play hard.”

Oats on facing Baylor Scheierman at South Dakota State…

“He’s a good player. He’s their leading scorer there at Creighton. When he went in the portal, we tried to get involved. We didn’t have much luck. He can shoot it. He’s physical. I think his body is in better shape there at Creighton. He’s good. When we played him at South Dakota State, he had different personnel around him, but he was very talented there, as well, but he’s gotten better since he left there.”

Oats on the similarities in Creighton’s losses to Colorado State, UNLV…

“I thought Colorado State and UNLV both did a pretty good job turning them into drivers and not letting them get threes off. I thought they both had some physicality on the perimeter that they didn’t handle well. And to be honest, they both made some tough shots, too. I’m not in Creighton’s locker room. I don’t know, I can’t speak for them. But they didn’t play their best games in those two games either. So sometimes it’s what you’re doing yourself and sometimes it’s what the opponent is doing, and it looked to me like there might have been a little bit of both of that. 

“I don’t think we’re going to have the benefit of Creighton playing their best game after coming off a loss to UNLV. I don’t know what their final situation is. We’re in finals this week. It tends to get a little funky with practice and guys are out of their routines a little bit and all that, so I can’t speak to that. But I do think UNLV and Colorado State both did a good job getting them off the three-point line and did a pretty good job hitting some tough shots on them.”

Oats on this being Alabama’s first true road game of the season…

“That was a huge win at Houston. It showed how tough we were mentally. I think we’ll see today. Obviously, like you said, Toronto was definitely a pro-Purdue crowd with Edey being from Toronto, but it wasn’t sold-out, packed, all Purdue. We’re going be at Creighton. My guess is it’s going to be a sellout. They do a great job with their support there. They sell out just about every home game, I think. And I think Coach McDermott is, I believe, 100-9 in non-conference home games since he’s been there. So he doesn’t lose very often at home, and he’s really got this thing rolling now. It took him a few years to get it up and running like he had, but he is a great coach. He’s done a good job. They’re going to have great crowd support. 

“Latrell Wrightsell is actually coming back home. He’s from Omaha, which will be nice to get him back home. They’ll be cheering for Creighton mostly, but he’ll have some fans in the stands. I think it’s the first time – he’s been in college four years now – I think it’s the first time he’s played back home in Nebraska. So it will be good for him. Hopefully, we can get him going.”

Oats on facing a team that plays similarly to Alabama…

“When we guard them, it’s similar. We don’t have to necessarily have a scout team. We can run a lot of the stuff that we run that they run. They run more post-ups for Kalkbrenner, but yes, they are trying to get threes. They’re not playing super slow. They’re playing with some pace. Not quite as fast us but faster than most teams were used to playing. So I think it helps us to know how  we want to guard them, but then we’ve got to figure out what we’re going to do in the post when they throw it into Kalkbrenner because that’s a little different than us.”

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