Alabama Gets One Final Exhibition before Season Tipoff

Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nate Oats | Robert Deutsch-Imagn Images

Alabama Basketball plays North Dakota on November 3rd to tip off the season, but before that, they have one final exhibition which will be played on Sunday afternoon at 2:00 CT against Furman on ESPN+. This exhibition will serve as the final time Alabama can take the floor against another opponent and learn what they need to work on before the games start to count. Much more important than the final result will be the lessons learned during this exhibition and what they can then take on to the rest of the season. Much like the first exhibition, I have a few things I will be watching for.

1. Health - Noah Williamson and Latrell Wrightsell Jr. both missed the first exhibition with injuries, seeing them come back to play in this one and how much they are able to contribute will be good to know, especially with Alabama having such an incredible schedule to start the season. Wrightsell stated he had about a 90% chance to play in one of the exhibitions, and after missing the first one, I expect he will give it a go this time around. Williamson, on the other hand, had a more minor injury and just was held out as a precaution during the first exhibition.

2. Front Court Play - In the Florida State Exhibition, Sherrell and Onyejiaka only combined to play for 18 minutes, and a lot of that was due to the type of players who were on the floor and the pace at which that exhibition was played. I would expect Furman to slow it down much more than Florida State did, and because of that, I think we should get a little better look at the front court to know what areas of improvement are the most important. I think that adding Williamson back if he is healthy as well should add back in the front court depth that Alabama will need throughout the course of the season.

3. Freshmen Comfort - Nate Oats got really solid play out of Amari Allen and Davion Hannah in the first exhibition. London Jemison did not have quite as good of a showing as his classmates, but I would expect all 3 of them to play a good bit in this game again. Alabama has a tendency to play their freshmen and newcomers more in these exhibitions to see how they respond and what they have in them prior to the start of the regular season. I do think that Alabama will continue to do this, and hopefully, we will see the freshmen continue to get the playing time and make the most of it to potentially help them earn some real minutes come tipoff.

4. Turnovers and Rebounding - Historically early in the season Nate Oats teams have had issues turning over the basketball as they learn the speed at which they can play under control. Alabama had issues in the first half of the Florida State game with 12 turnovers, so I will be looking to see how Alabama starts this one as it relates to turnovers. I know Nate Oats will want the to play fast and get out and run, but continuing to have control with that speed is a huge thing. Rebounding on the other hand, is something that Nate Oats knows can be a huge difference in teams success. Alabama when at its best is a really good offensive rebounding team, but it often comes down to effort on that end of the floor, when Alabama truly makes rebounding the focus they do well and when they don't they can sometimes get pushed around. I will be looking to see how Alabama rebounds against a team they should have some size on.

5. Perimeter Defense - Finally, the last thing I will be watching for is defense on the 3pt line. Bob Richey, while at Furman, has always had a team who does 2 things really well: shoot the 3 and pass the ball. Last season, they were 2nd in the country in assisting on over 64% of their made baskets. Of those FG attempts, over half were from behind the arc, good for the 4th highest rate in America. Simply put, his teams love to shoot the 3 and are very unselfish when it comes to passing the ball. Alabama will need to play solid individual defense and know their assignments because Furman does a great job at finding the open man and making you pay if your defense lapses.

No matter what happens in this exhibition, I will be going live on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook at 7 p.m. CT on Sunday after this exhibition to talk about what we learned in this game as well as talk about the start of the season. I will be taking chat questions throughout, so if you are interested in Alabama Basketball, come join the livestream. I will continue ramping up coverage of Alabama Basketball with the pregame threads here and Twitter/X, as well as multiple videos a week on YouTube, so subscribe if you haven't already and Roll Tide!