It's Bullshit That Alabama Gets To Be This Good At Basketball After Dominating College Football

What the fuck man? Alabama can't be this good at basketball. You're not allowed to have a dynasty in college football and then come in to the college hoops season and be a top-10 team. I don't give a fuck what the AP poll says, the people who vote are pretty dumb. They are a top-10 team. You get one sport or the other. You already have the warm weather, you have a fun ass campus with great bars. You don't get to be awesome at both sports. Even back in the day when we talked about how Wisconsin was the best school in terms of football and basketball success, they weren't winning titles. They were borderline top-10 for each sport. Alabama cruised to a football title and then you look at the hoops team.

There isn't a more fun team in the country than Alabama. Look at this shot chart from last night against LSU:

They played what might have been the best half of college basketball I've seen in years. It was unreal. John Petty starts the game 4-for-4 from three and just immediately talking shit, because that's what John Petty does. 

The scary thing is we really haven't seen Alabama at full strength. Jahvon Quinerley has missed time. Jordan Bruner is currently hurt. Herb Jones got banged up. All that and they still are 12-3, 7-0 in the SEC. For as dumb as we see some games, it's refreshing to watch Alabama embrace basketball in 2021. And it's not just offense. They are the No. 1 defense in the SEC during conference play. They rank 11th nationally in defense. They just play uptempo, they force you to play to their style. It's all threes and layups. Every single player on Bama can handle the ball, take you off the dribble and then force the defense to either rotate leaving someone open on the kickout or you stay home on three and give up a layup. There's nothing wild about the offensive sets, it's just letting guys play. Too many times in college basketball we see coaches slow it down, try to call out sets and then it goes to shit because the 2nd and 3rd read isn't there and the shot clock is at 8 seconds. Credit to Nate Oats for realizing, hey, I have dudes who can play and score. Let's just go ahead and do that. I also love that Nate Oats is still doing this: 

I don't care that charges are worth that much because there's no call that refs get wrong more than that and it's ruining the game. But the whole grit thing while a team plays as fast as possible and launches threes just makes it even better. Here's the crazy thing about Bama's scoring. Nobody averages more than 15 a game. Petty is just over 14, but they have 4 guys who go from 12.6-14.3. Good luck game planning on taking away one guy when they have 5 that can beat you. A guy who isn't in that average group is Josh Primo. The fact he played while Quinerley was out and improved each game, just means Alabama is going to be better for March. He had 11 against Tennessee, 22 against Auburn, 22 last night. Developing a little bit of depth is huge right now. 

Don't get me wrong, I fully understand that it's tough to back a team that relies on the 3pt line from a betting standpoint, especially in March. But the fact they are defending their ass off and can finish at the rim is just as important. I gave them out to you a couple weeks ago at 66/1. Hopefully you jumped on them then because that number is only crashing down. Herb Jones is arguably the best defender in the SEC and most undervalued defender in the country. That matters come March. 

Just bullshit that Alabama gets to be awesome at basketball after Mac Jones and DeVonta Smith and the rest of that group.