Kentucky is looking to regain supremacy over Alabama

Alabama is known for its success on the gridiron, but the basketball program has not been too shabby. The Crimson Tide has won eight SEC Tournament titles and owns 10 SEC regular-season championships with nine Sweet 16 appearances.

However, the program has a long history of losing to Kentucky.

The Wildcats enter Saturday evening’s game at Coleman Coliseum owning a 114-40 series lead. John Calipari is 16-5 against the Crimson Tide since arriving. These two teams have met often in the postseason, but Kentucky owns a 17-2 mark in SEC Tournament action. If not for the Wildcats, Alabama would have a much deeper trophy case on campus.

Nate Oats is looking to change all of that.

New look Alabama

Avery Johnson spent four seasons at Alabama and lost at least 15 games every year. Despite some solid recruiting success, the Tide never finished in the top-50 at KenPom and had just one NCAA Tournament appearance. The administration decided there needed to be a change and seemed to have found the guy.

After taking over for Bobby Hurley at Buffalo, Nate Oats led the Bulls to two MAC titles, three NCAA Tournament berths in four seasons, and consecutive Round of 32 appearances.

After the 2019 season, Alabama came calling.

The Tide finished just 16-15 in the first season under Oats, but the new style of play had been established. Since then, the Tide has ranked in the top-20 every year in tempo and shoots nearly half of their field goal attempts from behind the three-point line.

After losing to Kentucky in Rupp Arena in 2020, the Tide and Wildcats faced off twice in the COVID-19 season with Alabama recording a sweep highlighted by a 20-point win in Rupp Arena. In his second season, Oats would win both an SEC regular-season title and SEC Tournament title as Alabama won 26 games and made the Sweet 16 for the first time in 17 years.

Kentucky looks to bounce back

In his first 12 seasons at Kentucky, John Calipari has only been swept in the regular season three times by SEC foes. Florida got out the brooms when the Gators ran the table in the conference back in 2014. Tennessee and Florida accomplished the mission in 2018. Alabama joined the group last season.

In each of those instances, Kentucky bounced back immediately to win the next meeting in the following season. The Wildcats beat Florida three times in 2015, routed No. 1 Tennessee by 17 points in 2019, and also swept the Gators that season.

Now the Wildcats will be looking to do the same to Alabama.

In year three, Oats has seen his program take a step back as the defense has fallen to No. 76 in adjusted efficiency after being No. 3 last year. Meanwhile, the Tide are shooting just 31.4 percent from three which ranks No. 284 nationally. Bama will make the NCAA Tournament due to a bunch of big wins, but this is a reset season.

Kentucky will enter Coleman Coliseum looking to regain control and to avoid the first three-game losing streak to Alabama in series history. History tells us that Saturday night should be a good 40 minutes for the road team.