Alabama Basketball: 3 keys for the Tide against Arizona
By Dakota Cox
1. The Tide must stay consistent throughout the entire game
Alabama’s story so far this year has been a bumpy road. The most obvious example of this has been the loss to Georgia State, but it’s not the only occurrence. It’s not always a high followed by a low. In the Murray State game, the team came out extremely flat. They managed to come back and take a lead, but the Racers never gave up, and that game went down to the wire.
A similar scenario happened against UCF. The Knights took a commanding lead early, and it was too much for the Tide to handle. They fought back, but they weren’t able to come out with the win. Things like this have to stop if Alabama wants to gut out tough games later on in the year. They can’t expect to achieve their goals without playing complete games.
Arizona has the ability to start out strong. As with their two losses, however, they haven’t shown the ability to stay competitive in mismatches. Alabama is nowhere near the level of Gonzaga or Auburn, but they need to start out strong and hope that they can destroy Arizona’s will to compete. If this happens, it will be a great chance for the Tide to get experience in closing out games against Power 5 opponents.
How does Alabama complete this challenge? It starts with minimizing the opponent’s best player. Ja Morant from Murray State destroyed the Tide. D’Marcus Simonds from Georgia State balled for 23 points in their win. Alabama limited Tacko fall from UCF, but B.J. Taylor and Aubrey Dawkins combined for 40 points.
Most opponents play through their guards, and it has worked well against this Tide defense. Therefore, it will be greatly important for the Tide to limit Brandon Randolph’s abilities to score.