Alabama entered Tuesday night’s game against Davidson in Birmingham ranked No. 10 in the country. The Tide were supposed to play an undefeated Colorado State team that was ranked No. 23, but the Rams had some COVID-19 issues and had to back out.

Thus, Davidson stepped in, and the Tide are probably lucky the Rams didn’t come to town. They were given more than they bargained for against the Wildcats, falling 79-78 after a furious comeback attempt came up just short in the final minute.

Alabama dropped to 9-3. Yes, this team has beaten both of the Final Four teams from last year that it has played – Gonzaga in Seattle and Houston in Tuscaloosa. But, losses to Iona, Memphis and, now, Davidson certainly tarnish the image of Nate Oats’ team a bit.

So, with the Tide now off until Wednesday, Dec. 29, when SEC play kicks off at home against Tennessee, is it time to worry about the reigning SEC regular-season and tournament champions?

Let’s take a look at some reasons the worry is warranted and some reasons everything will be fine:

Why worry

This is a streaky team, and when the Tide are cold, they’re really cold. The Tide trailed Davidson 79-69 with 2 minutes left on Tuesday night and scored 9 unanswered points to come a missed Jahvon Quinerly free throw from tying the game in the closing seconds.

Obviously, you don’t want to be in a situation where you’re trailing a mid-major team by double digits in the closing minutes of the game. Yes, it’s good the Tide were able to claw back, but I’m worried about their free-throw shooting. Or, rather, their lack thereof.

After shooting at least 19 free throws in 7 of their first 9 games, the Tide have gone 8-for-12 from the line in a loss to Memphis, 11-for-16 in a win over Jacksonville State and 6-for-8 against Davidson in Tuesday night’s loss.

Davidson only went 5-for-5 from the line, so free-throw disparity wasn’t an issue. Still, Alabama should be getting to the charity stripe a lot more. That signals to me that they’re settling for 3s that might not be the best look or aren’t playing to contact in the lane.

Part of that has to do with how guard-oriented the offense is. That’s an issue moving forward. This team’s top 5 scorers are all 6-6 or shorter. That hurt them against Davidson, a team with a ton of length.

Speaking of that length, Davidson contained Keon Ellis, who had 20 points and 10 boards against Jacksonville State. Ellis was scoreless in the first half and finished with 9 points after making a couple of late buckets.

Hyunjung Lee gave him fits all night, as you can see in the clips below, leading to some bad shot selection from Alabama:

https://twitter.com/droppingdimes20/status/1473471187334443013

So, why do the Tide have so much more success against SEC opponents than in nonconference play, especially if we use last year’s 16-2 SEC record as an example? Well, SEC refs call an insane number of fouls in league games. So, the Tide figure to get a lot more than 8 tries from the charity stripe in all 18 SEC contests.

But the size issue could harm this team against squads like Auburn, LSU and others in conference play. We’ll find out soon enough.

Why this is fine

Even last year, Alabama was streaky. The Tide only went 5-4 in nonconference play in 2020-21, with losses to Stanford, Clemson, Western Kentucky and Oklahoma. The Tide also didn’t have any nonconference wins of the caliber of Gonzaga and Houston last year.

If you look at the shooting percentages across the board, both offensively and defensively, they’re not that different. Alabama still shoots a high number of 3s with mediocre success and defends the 3-pointer well. It gets to the line enough, but not at a high level by any means, and there are some struggles when it comes to cashing in from the charity stripe.

Usually, if Alabama gets to 80 points, it wins. So, let’s extrapolate that by 10 points and look at what happens when the opponent scores at least 70 points.

In nonconference play last year, Alabama allowed 70 or more points in 5 of 8 games. This year, it has allowed 70 points or more in 7 of 12 games. So, the defense isn’t really any better (or any worse) than last year.

Like past Kentucky teams that have made deep tournament runs, Oats’ strategy seems to be to feel his team out a bit during nonconference play so they can hit the ground running in league action.

Will that strategy lead to SEC success again this year? That remains to be seen, but with wins against Gonzaga and Houston in their back pocket, it’s safe to say the Tide can compete with anyone. Now, it’s just a matter of seeing if they can get hot at the right time in order to make another run at the SEC Tournament title and another impressive March Madness showing.