Alabama nearly came up with a huge victory for itself and the SEC when it lost by one at Wichita State on Tuesday night. Anthony Grant’s team felt secure with an 11-point lead and 5:50 remaining, but the Tide’s Achilles Heel — fundamental defense — came back to haunt them once again. Grant’s defense has struggled all season, and after nearly 35 minutes of solid pressure on the road (forcing the Shockers into 40.8 percent shooting), it failed them once again.
In this edition of Freeze Frame, we will look at the final 15 minutes of Alabama’s defense against the Shockers. The Tide to that point had found a lot of success with a 2-3 match-up zone that frustrated Fred Van Vleet, Ron Baker, and their Wichita State teammates into a bunch of contested outside shots. But with the momentum clearly in the hands of Alabama, Grant made a huge mistake in shifting back to his man-to-man defense. Van Vleet was then able to penetrate the lane to find open teammates, rendering the pick-and-roll option more effective, and ultimately erasing a late double-figure lead.
In the first play here, you can see the formation of the match-up zone. Alabama closes out quickly on the ball-handler, slides over to provide help, and stays in shape to protect the middle.
Not a lot of space in the middle. Wichita State has some open space in long range, but that’s about it.
The Tide have taken away most of the middle, giving Wichita State few options there. The Shockers choose to reverse the ball to the other side, but Alabama quickly takes shape again.
Wichita State has the same options available to them: very little in the paint, but outside shots are available.
Wichita State looks for the corner three from Rashard Kelly. The Tide quickly close out to double team him, coming from multiple angles. Kelly is trapped in the corner and commits the turnover.
Alabama didn’t give the Shockers much space, so Gregg Marshall added some pick-and-rolls to free up his players. The Tide reacted really well to this by utilizing perimeter traps. The Crimson Tide double-teamed the ball-handler out of every pick-and-roll, forcing the player to back out of the play or cough up the ball. Here, Van Vleet has the ball.
As soon as he turns the corner, two Alabama defenders step up to meet him.
The defender who was screened also comes down to help, and Van Vleet finds himself surrounded by three Alabama defenders. He turns it over and Alabama has a fast break opportunity on the other end.
But for some reason, Grant chose to abandon the match-up zone that gave the Shockers such fits, in favor of the man-to-man. Now, Alabama switches on pick-and-rolls, giving Van Vleet a mismatch to drive past larger defenders. In the next play, with Wichita State down four and under three minutes to go, Van Vleet finds Tekele Cotton in the corner. Normally the Tide would double-team in this situation and force Cotton into a mistake. Instead, Cotton easily drives past Levi Randolph.
When Michael Kessens comes to help, Cotton finds Kelly for an open look cutting down the lane.
That play capped a 9-0 Wichita State run, and gave the Shockers an easy look in the paint that they weren’t getting when the Tide was in the match-up zone. The shift to man-to-man resulted in the same ineffective defense that the Tide has been playing all year. If Alabama wants to make a splash in the SEC over the next few months, it needs to go with what is working – the 2-3 match-up zone that almost propelled the Tide to a victory over Wichita State in one of the toughest home venues in college basketball.