Before last season it looked like the Tide might be hitting their first real reset since the 2022 season. But at the last minute, Labaron Philon turned down a late 1st round or early second round draft grade to play one more season in Tuscaloosa. That decision might have saved Nate Oats a down year, because Philon was awesome.

Philon improved on nearly every category from his freshman season, and was the clear star and leader for a Crimson Tide team who went 13-5 in the SEC, and landed another protected seed in the NCAA Tournament.

The season wasn’t without some bumps, as Nate Oats is always looking to schedule well, and the Tide dropped three games in the Non-conference part of the schedule. And also in true Nate Oats style, the off the court side of things made headlines as well. Starting combo guard Aden Holloway was arrested for possession of a large amount of marijuana, and he ended up missing the last three games due to suspension.

Holloway was able to avoid jail time through a plea bargain, but he’ll begin the season still suspended, though he’s on the roster.

So it’s always entertaining for Alabama. The on the court product is high quality, and fun. And things happen off the floor as well.

If Nate Oats hasn’t endeared himself to you, don’t worry, you aren’t alone. Outside of Tuscaloosa, it’s understandable if Oats is one of the least popular SEC coaches. His teams do a good job of making things a little messy off the court, and Oats own personal life is not without some serious question marks.

But there’s also zero doubt he’s a great basketball coach, and his teams at Alabama play a fun style of basketball, and they win. A lot.

He’s entering his 8th season, and the program is averaging more than 24 wins a season. The Alabama program won 24 games or more just 4 times since Wimp Sanderson resigned in 1992. Those 24 wins are even more impressive when you consider nobody in the SEC schedules as hard as Oats does. He really has become the gold standard of scheduling, as he’s willing to take any game, any where, at any time. He typically avoids playing any Quad 4 games, and in 13 non-conference games last season Alabama played 7 Quad 1 games, plus three more Quad 2 games.

They finished last year with the 3rd most efficient offense in the 5th fastest pace. And this is the theme. Alabama scores it, and they play fast. When he gets the defense to come along as well, Alabama has been really difficult to beat.

Looking back across the timeline going back to the post-Sanderson era, it’s clear

Welp, Labaron Philon is gone. The rest of the SEC is thankful. Also Latrell Wrightsell was able to stay mostly healthy and play a full season. A big loss was Aiden Sherrell, who left for Indiana via the transfer portal, after being one of the few interior players the Tide had last season.

Alabama struggled with injuries last season, and so a higher amount of roster turnover was to be expected.

According to recent reports, Alabama is preparing to start the season with Aden Holloway sidelined with a suspension due to his legal troubles in the offseason. He should play this season, but when he joins the team may be up to the University, and out of Oats’ hands.

But as a player, Holloway is going to be incredibly important to the success of the Tide this year. He’s been in the system now for three seasons, and he’s gotten better each year. As a recruit, Holloway was known as a shooter and less as a playmaker, but he’s learned he can do both. His shooting has improved to an elite 43.8% on about 6 attempts a game. He also improved his efficiency to over 1.3 points per possession, and he improved his assist rate to 23.9%. After Philon, Holloway was clearly the secondary creator for the Tide offense last season.

Anytime you can convince an NBA draft pick to come back to school for another year, that should be considered a win. And while watching Amari Allen play, he may not jump off the page as the most obvious draftable NBA players, he’s exactly where the league is going these days. He doesn’t need the ball in his hands to make an impact, and is content doing lots of little things to impact the game. He’s good defensively, rebounds, and shoots the basketball well. And for a team who struggled to rebound the ball well at times last year, Allen was one of the best rebounders on the team.

Oats also brings back Keitenn Bristow and London Jemison, two players who fit well into the four spot, but neither could find consistent mniutes. Jemison is the higher ranked recruit, while Bristow was a transfer in a year ago, but both guys should be looking for a larger role this year.

To shore up the interior for the Tide, the portal brought Boise State transfer Drew Fielder, Kentucky big man Brandon Garrison, and Mississippi State freshman transfer Jamarion Davis-Fleming. Garrison is still searching for his ceiling as a former McDonalds All American, and Fielder is a stretch five who is closer to the realized version of what Alabama thought they were getting in Noah Williamson last season.

My favorite anecdote about Davis-Fleming is his older brother Javian started at Alabama in 2018, then transferred to Mississippi State in 2021, before finishing out his career at UAB. Davis-Fleming the younger has now started at Mississippi State and transferred to Alabama. Is a trip to UAB in his future?

Starting the season without the biggest cog on the roster will present some challenges. Without the most likely starting point guard, Nate Oats will have options, but no definitive answers. Jaxon Richardson is the son of former NBA player and Michigan State guard Jason Richardson, he’s got a huge ceiling and is a truly elite athlete, but the skill level is a work in progress. He needs to shoot the ball more consistently, and he’s not fully developed as a playmaker.

Qayden Samuels is one of the top scorers in the 2026 recruiting class, and is a smooth and crafty lefty with great size. He’s never been much of a primary ball handler, or passer for that matter, but he’s strong and skilled enough to handle the ball. Then there’s another freshman in Anderson Diaz, a high upside play, Diaz reclassified from the 2027 class to play this season. So he’s young, but he was a borderline 5-star point guard in his class before reclassifying.

Oats has options, but clearly the best option will be when Holloway returns.

How he handles his front court will be interesting, because a player like Garrison was hard to trust in his two seasons at Kentucky. He’s always teased with his talent, one moment sinking a step in three or whipping a back door pass past the ear of his defender. Then a moment later turning the ball over or missing his box out. Fielder feels like the safeguard to minimize those moments from Garrison. He won’t blow you away with his athleticism, but he can’t use his body to get good position, and he’s capable of making threes. Plus, the one thing that will be music to Nate Oats ears, he’s a good rebounder.

Also, most of these previews are written before ever getting eyes on the team in live action. With more exhibition games being televised it’s easy to see things you missed before the season. I can already expect that projections for Cole Cloer missed the mark. He looks like he’s been working on his body and should be a fixture in the rotation.

Quite frankly there’s nobody doing it like Nate Oats in scheduling, although he’s playing potential Quad 4 games this year after scheduling zero last season.

But he’s only booked what looks to be three quad 4 games at home, which is very different from everyone else in high major college basketball. None of them are below Oakland’s analytical ranking, and I think most college basketball fans known Greg Kampe’s reputation at Oakland. Basically the ‘easy’ games on Alabama’s schedule are all quality mid-majors, and Seton Hall. In all Alabama plays as many top 100 opponents in their non-conference as some people play Quad 4 games. This year, it’s 9. Including, if they beat Baylor, a potential of five or six top 20 opponents. There are no breaks.

Just to give them even more Quad one chances, Alabama plays (currently) only five Quad 2 games, and as long as Mississippi State isn’t terrible, that should hold. The start of the schedule isn’t too terrible, with State on the road, an unknown LSU team and Ole Miss at home. Arkansas on the road will be tough, and then they get Florida. But of the teams at the top of the league, only Florida comes to Tuscaloosa.

Trust Alabama.

That’s basically what this ranking amounts to. Truthfully this isn’t the 6th best roster in the SEC, and it’s probably not even the best roster in the state of Alabama. But it’s far easier to trust a coach who has won the way Oats has won. Each of the last three years, the Crimson Tide have finished top 5 in offensive efficiency. Since Oats has been the coach, they’ve never finished lower than 37th, this first season. No matter who is on his roster, he’s going to figure out ways to score.

The defensive side of the ball is where Alabama determines if they’re merely good, or if they’re going to be great.

Last season, Alabama’s interior issues were so dire that Oats summoned Charles Bediako for help from the G-League. And why was the interior defense so poor? Mainly, Labaron Philon and Aden Holloway were not great point of attack defenders, and Noah Williamson wasn’t as good as they’d hoped. After Williamson, Alabama’s only true 5 was freshman Collins Onyejiaka, who got hurt early in the season and didn’t see the floor after the second game of the season.

Oats clearly saw the issue with his roster, and leaned hard in the portal on bigs.

Garrison is solid defender, but Fielder hasn’t been known for his defense. But the rest of the roster has leveled up with size and length. They’re young, but London Jemison could play minutes on the wing, so too could Keitenn Bristow, even the freshmen class are all high level players with great length.

The ball handling and post situation could be tenuous, but the wings are going to be good enough to hopefully make up the difference. This is one of the more unique roster builds from Oats, and one that definitely has questions. But he’s always found a way in the past, there’s no reason to think they won’t do the same again this season.

About the preview: a number of respected basketball bloggers were asked to submit one pick for the entire league schedule game by game. The game by game option allows us to account for the unbalanced schedule when addressing any kind of power rankings. Each set of picks are reflected in “the Masses” picks. Included in “the Masses” are various SEC media members who made picks at my request, as well as additional credit given to the analytics projections, and national media outlet predictions.

Additionally, instead of relying solely on KenPom.com for the analytics site projections, we’re taking the average of the four main sites (EvanMiya.com, BartTorvik.com, Haslametrics.com, and KenPom.com) to give a closer consensus picture. These are weighted a touch for reliability.

The projections: In an attempt to be as accurate as we could be, we increased the amount of analytics used to make individual projections which influenced how these teams slotted in order. Matt Watkins used an in-depth method for projecting the entire SEC transfer list, we then mixed in EvanMiya.com’s BPR projections, and BartTorvik.com’s preseason individual projections to round out the expected production based upon how each coach routinely uses his rotations.

GLOSSARY

* - an asterisk denotes a walk-on player

GP - Games Played

%min - percentage of total available minutes played, does not account for time missed due to injury

%poss - percentage of team possessions the player is responsible for ending a possession, whether by making a shot, missing a shot not rebounded by the offense or committing a turnover. For returning players this is noted as a percentage of total team possessions. For newcomers it was total possessions when that player was on the floor, better known as Usage Rate.

ORtg - Offensive Rating, similar to a points per possession but averaged out over 100 possessions. So it’s how many points a player would score if they were responsible for 100 possessions.

BPR - Bayseian Performance Rating, a single player efficiency metric created by Evan Miyakawa to determine both offensive and defensive impact when a player is on the floor.

PAR - Points Above Replacement, a Rock M+ proprietary rating measuring projected on-off impact adjusted for time on the floor.

PPG - Points Per Game, RPG - Rebounds Per Game, APG - Assists Per Game: All traditional statistics used to measure player production.

For newcomer player rankings, we used EvanMiya.com’ s rankings for transfers, and 247sports.com ‘s Composite Rating for Freshmen and Junior College signees.