After finishing the regular season with a head-scratching loss at Tennessee, no one knew what Alabama’s mindset would be heading into the SEC Tournament.
It was yet another loss where the Crimson Tide failed to find the scoring needed in crucial moments of the game, which limited their ability to make a march towards an NCAA tournament bid this season.
However, the Alabama team that showed up in Nashville wasn’t the Alabama team that had showed up in a lot of games during the season.
Avery Johnson finally put together complete performances on both sides of the floor, which allowed the Crimson Tide to make a run to the SEC Tournament semifinals before losing a hard-fought game to eventual champion Kentucky.
But coming up short of punching an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament wasn’t enough to deter Johnson from praising his team’s improved play.
“Probably the best basketball we played was in the SEC Tournament,” he said on Monday’s SEC coaches teleconference. “That was the most consistent we’ve played on both ends of the floor.”
“We actually scored the ball and that’s what we had been searching for all year to go along with our good defense.”
The main reason for Alabama’s success on offense was the emergence of redshirt freshman Dazon Ingram. Although Ingram was the team’s second-leading scorer during the regular season, it was clear that there was still another gear that hadn’t quite kicked in yet.
But that happened at Bridgestone Arena last week. Ingram used an aggressive mentality to score 41 points in three games while also affecting the game in other ways.
Johnson is hoping that Ingram and the rest of his returning core of players will use the SEC Tournament momentum to stay excited ahead of Tuesday’s NIT showdown with Richmond.
“My sense is that they wanna play some more ball,” Johnson said. “For those young players like Braxton (Key), Dazon (Ingram), Avery Johnson Jr., Donta Hall, and Riley Norris, the guys who are gonna be coming back next year and be a part of our rotation, we need to play more basketball.”
The Spiders head into Tuscaloosa sporting a 20-12 record, including winning of their last six games. Chris Mooney’s team opened up Atlantic-10 Tournament play with a win over George Washington, but fell to VCU in overtime in the semifinals.
But despite the Spiders playing well down the stretch, the Crimson Tide still enter as the favorite.
If Alabama can play with the same level of maturity that it did in Music City, and continue making progress on its biggest weaknesses, it could be in store for a lengthy NIT run if all goes according to plan.
“We matured,” Johnson said. “A lot of the mistakes, whether it was spacing, setting screens, taking care of the ball, making our free throws, whatever areas we were inconsistent in during the regular season, we seemed to have put it together.”
“I’m happy that the game is on Tuesday and not later in the week because we need to get back on the floor after playing some of our best basketball.”
Should it win on Tuesday, Alabama will meet the winner of No. 2 Clemson vs. No. 7 Oakland in the NIT second round.