Alabama Basketball: Takeaways from victory over Jacksonville State
![Alabama guard Jaden Shackelford (5) drives hard past South Carolina guard AJ Lawson (0) in Coleman Coliseum Saturday, Feb. 29, 2020. [Staff Photo/Gary Cosby Jr.]Alabama Vs South Carolina Sec Basketball](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_fill,w_1080,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/shape%2Fcover%2Fsport%2F72cb4bb315576a7c14ef3a356254a1c73056582a043fc4d55c78a3dacb3df200.jpg "Alabama guard Jaden Shackelford (5) drives hard past South Carolina guard AJ Lawson (0) in Coleman Coliseum Saturday, Feb. 29, 2020. [Staff Photo/Gary Cosby Jr.]Alabama Vs South Carolina Sec Basketball")
Alabama Basketball kicked off their season with an 81-57 win over Jacksonville State, but it was a little sloppier than it probably should’ve been.
Alabama basketball began their 2020-21 season on Wednesday night against Jacksonville State in Tuscaloosa. Alabama enters the season as the 25th ranked team in the coaches poll, and is expected to be a tournament team come March.
The Crimson Tide came into the season with a completely new roster, but also some key returners. Former Tide standout Kira Lewis left Alabama for the NBA as he was drafted 13th overall, but is replaced by former McDonald’s All-American, Jahvon Quinerly, who is playing in his first season at Alabama after not getting a waiver for immediate eligibility last season.
In addition to Quinerly, James Rojas, Jordan Bruner, Keon Ellis, and Juwan Gary are all playing In their first season with Alabama as well, plus freshmen Josh Primo, Keon Ambrose-Hylton, and several others.
Nonetheless, despite the fact that Alabama has several key returners in John Petty jr., Herb Jones, Jaden Shackelford, and some others, the 2020-21 Crimson Tide basketball team looks quite different than it did in 2019-20.
We saw just how different the Crimson Tide are in their first game as Alabama shot 22.6% from three, compared to their average of 34.9% from three last season. It might’ve been a good thing that Alabama began the season against a Jacksonville State team that went 13-19 last season because 7-31 from three likely won’t cut it against most other teams.
Nonetheless, there were some good things and bad things that came out of Alabama’s first game of the season, so let’s take a look at a couple of them: