Nate Oats attempts to explain why Alabama shoots better on the road than at home

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Throughout this season, Alabama has been about a middle-of-the-road shooting team. The Crimson Tide is shooting 34.2 percent from 3-point range on the season. That ranks 152 nationally, right around the middle of the 364 teams in Division I college basketball.

But what’s strange about Alabama’s shooting is how widely it’s differed at home and on the road. This doesn’t sound like a strange concept, until you realize that this team is actually significantly better shooting away from its home gym.

As of Feb. 21, the Tide is shooting 39.2 percent (116-of-296) from deep on the road. That’s nearly 10 percentage points better than its number inside Coleman Coliseum, which is 29.7 percent (104-of-349).

Alabama head coach Nate Oats was asked about this phenomenon in his Friday afternoon press conference and he gave his best explanation, as well as possible fixes.

“You know what, I don’t have a great answer for that,” Oats said. “There’s some theories we’ve talked about a little bit. One of them may be, sometimes less is more. When we’re at home guys are able to get in the gym a bunch, they get their shooting time in the morning, they come back early before the game. We chart how much they do it, some of our guys are putting too many miles on their legs before a game starts at home. Some of our guys need to eliminate some of the shooting time in the afternoon and just get their legs up under them, that’s one theory.”

Oats gave another potential reasoning, citing the team’s excellent mentality when playing on the road this season, and implying how that mentality needs to carry over into home games as well.

“The other is, we know we’re going into a hostile environment. We know we’ve just got be tough as nails,” Oats said. “And I’ve attributed this a lot, just lose yourself in the game. I think when you lose yourself in the game knowing it’s gonna be tough, you’re locked into defense, you’ve got to be making blue collar plays, I think sometimes the offense just takes care of itself when you’re focused on the right stuff.”

Recently, Alabama experienced possibly the worst whiplash of shooting percentages it’s seen in back-to-back games this year. The Crimson Tide shot 57 percent in a road win over Texas a little over a week ago, just to come back home and shoot an abysmal 19 percent against No. 1 Auburn in a game that was close down the stretch.

With an important game coming up Saturday trying to avoid a 3-game losing skid, a better shooting game inside Coleman Coliseum will be paramount. The opponent, No. 17 Kentucky, is an excellent shooting team, sitting at 38 percent as a team on the season.

“I don’t know which it is, maybe it’s neither of those two, but we’re gonna try to address both,” Oats said. “They need to get themselves to just lose themselves in the game and make sure we’re not overdoing the wear and tear on our bodies on gameday just because we have access to a gym.”

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