How Nate Oats is approaching Alabama's non-conference gauntlet

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Things are about to get real for Alabama basketball.

The 2nd-ranked Crimson Tide has started the season 3-0. All three of those wins have come at home against mid-majors, and while Arkansas State and McNeese State pushed Alabama to the brink, the next seven opponents on the schedule are a major step up in competition.

It all starts to tonight as the Crimson Tide takes on No. 13 Purdue on the road, but it doesn’t stop there.

Next week, Alabama plays Illinois in Birmingham, the first team out of the current top 25. After that, Alabama will play No. 8 Houston, No. 24 Rutgers, and a to-be-determined third team in the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas over Thanksgiving week.

Following the trip to Vegas, Alabama takes on No. 10 North Carolina on the road, and caps the 7-game gauntlet with a home game against No. 14 Creighton on Dec. 14. That makes a month straight against high-major teams, all but two of which are ranked.

Head coach Nate Oats is about to learn a whole lot about his team. Before the Crimson Tide hit the road for Purdue on Thursday, he was asked what he wanted to see from his team over this stretch.

“I think one is our offense needs to pick up,” Oats said. “We need to get that done against seven of the better teams in the country. Be able to dictate pace, tempo, get the ball moving, have very unselfish play on offense. I think we struggled a little with some of that these first three games. So we need to get our offense back on pace with what we expected this year to be.”

The Alabama offense, one that’s always typically dynamic under Oats’ leadership, has been lackluster through the first week-and-a-half of the season. After breaking 100 in the season-opener, the scoring total dropped to 88 against Arkansas State and just 72 against McNeese State.

Both games saw Alabama shoot below 33 percent from 3-point range, including a 19 percent mark in the Arkansas State game.

Those numbers are going to have to be better for Alabama to walk through this stretch without suffering some major losses. But on that note, Oats has said he’s more concerned about Alabama’s effort in these games than the pure results of them.

“More importantly than the offense, is are we competing in every game,” Oats said. “Maybe we’re gonna win all seven, that would be a hard stretch to win all seven with road games and neutrals and all that. It would be great. I think we’re more than capable of winning all seven. If we go 5-2, 6-1, whatever we go, 4-3, I don’t know. Did we compete in every game? Did we give ourselves a chance to win? Did we execute, did we get great shots, and if a team just outplays us, they outplay us and we learn from it.”

Yes, there are high expectations for this Alabama team, but winning all seven of these games is a near-impossible task for any team in college basketball.

Playing quality high-major opponents this early in the season is essentially a no-risk plan. Sure, winning would be ideal, and it would add some quality wins to the resume, but losing a Quad 1 game in November won’t hurt the resume badly, either. Losses in these early games can even help the team in the long run.

Just look back to last year, when Alabama started the season 6-5 with three consecutive losses to high-major teams in the month of December. Playing those games made the team better, and it showed with a 13-5 mark in SEC play and an eventual Final Four run.

Of course, winning the games is the ultimate goal. But if Oats sees the proper effort and execution out of his team, he can live with the results.

“I don’t want any of the seven games to come out of it with a loss,” Oats said. “I can live with a loss, as long as we competed, we executed, we got the shots we wanted, if they just didn’t drop, they didn’t drop. Can we do that all seven games? If so, I’m fine with whatever our record ends up being. If we do all that, the record will take care of itself.”