ST. LOUIS – The Alabama Crimson Tide came to this week's SEC Tournament in a tricky spot. They were sitting at 17-14, having lost their final five games in SEC play, and the talented young group was likely on the outside of the NCAA tournament field looking in.
Worse still was that their star player, soon-to-be lottery pick Collin Sexton, was ice cold. Sure, the hard-charging freshman point guard was still getting buckets, but they were mostly from the free-throw line. He averaged 17.8 points per game during that five-game stretch, roughly his season average, but he was shooting an ugly 11.8 percent from 3-point range. His shooting confidence appeared to be gone. And as Collin Sexton goes, so goes Alabama.
When the Alabama Crimson Tide leave St. Louis, the team will be in a very different spot.
It won't matter whether the Tide beats Kentucky in the SEC Tournament semifinals Saturday: This team will certainly be in the NCAA Tournament field. A win over Texas A&M on Thursday came thanks to Sexton's 27 points and end-to-end dash with 4.4 seconds left where a buzzer-beating fingerroll lifted his team to victory. And then an absurd second-half comeback on Friday where Sexton buried Auburn with 31 points in an 81-63 Alabama blowout. Alabama outscored its archrival, 50-22, in the second half, en route to a resounding victory that'll resonate with the NCAA Tournament selection committee. Most importantly, Sexton's ice-cold shooting suddenly became white-hot. On Thursday, he went 3 of 6 from 3-point range; on Friday, 6 of 8. He was shimmying and dancing on the court after most of them, taking joy in his team's newfound confidence.
The Tide are rolling.
And this is a team nobody wants to see in their region come Selection Sunday.
"We knew when we came in this tournament, we had to win games, and we wanted to because we have a lot to prove," Sexton said. "I feel like everybody counted us out, and coach (Avery Johnson) told us, just go out there and play. Whatever the outcome is, just play and give it your all while you're out there."
"All season, they're talking about adversity, that adversity is going to hit," Sexton continued. "It's how we're going to react to the adversity and come back from it. I felt like we lost those five games and we came back winning two, so I feel like we're on a roll right now, and we're just having fun. If we're having fun, we're going to make shots. That's really all it is."
The key to Alabama's March success is simple: Make those shots. This young team's defense is very good, perhaps elite. The Tide rank 14th in the nation in defense efficiency. They have athletes.
What they don't always have is consistent shooting. The Tide rank 302nd in the nation (out of 351 teams) in 3-point percentage. To give you a bit of context on why that matters, only nine high-major teams shoot worse from beyond the arc, and only one of them looks to be NCAA-Tournament bound. And that one team is Texas, which CBSSports.com's Jerry Palm slots as a 10-seed.
We saw on Friday how a hot-shooting Sexton can lift Alabama.
"When he gets hot, it's a scary sight," Sexton's backcourt partner, Dazon Ingram, told me in the locker room. "Him or (John Petty), once they hit shots it just allows the defense to open up for our drives. Teams want to go zone on us. Unless we're able to hit threes, and that (makes) them go man. And can't nobody guard us one-on-one, man-to-man."
It's true – and it only happens when they are making outside shots.
One other thing to note about Alabama: Late in the game, Donta Hall, who is the team's top interior presence on offense and defense, jumped in the air when Auburn's Chuma Okeke faked a jumper. Okeke went under Hall, whose body flipped in the air. Hall landed on his hip and then smashed his head on the floor. It looked like he was briefly knocked out. He took a few minutes before he got off the floor, and was taken to the locker room. I asked coach Avery Johnson about the injury after the game. He said he still didn't know.
"We don't like concussions," Johnson. "We don't like head injuries. But nobody said anything yet. There's no diagnosis yet. No idea whatsoever. I'll meet with the doctors and meet with him and check him out… We're hoping and praying that he's going to be okay. Man, that was an incredible fall."
You can take a Sharpie to your tournament bracket and put Alabama in the field. But don't pencil them into your second weekend just yet. Hall is an important variable, the fulcrum of an excellent defense. Just as important is whether Sexton's hot shooting, and by extension this team's confidence, can survive into next week. Some teams can weather a knock or two going into the tournament. Not this young, inconsistent bunch.
But if the right things fall into place, this Alabama team could be the king of the bracket-destroyers next week.
