Alabama vs UConn Pick & Prediction: Blowout Expected?

The Final Four welcomes two types of teams.

The first are title contenders. They expected to make it to the tournament's third weekend and have designs on two more wins to cut down the nets.

The others are Cinderellas just happy to be alive. The George Mason and VCU miracle runs that made it this far come to mind, as does NC State this year.

Alabama straddles the line between these two categories.

At times, the Crimson Tide have looked like one of the most dangerous teams in college basketball, with an offense capable of outscoring anyone. Yet Alabama's defensive issues have been stark this season, a clear flaw for a team with championship aspirations.

Still, the Tide have stepped up their defense to a level strong enough to knock off top-seeded North Carolina and win the four games to make the trip to Phoenix.

This is, however, the first Final Four appearance for Alabama's program and in Nate Oats' coaching career. The Tide will take the floor as double-digit underdogs against the mighty UConn Huskies.

Can the Tide compete with UConn, or will the Huskies continue their march through the madness?

Just 11 years ago, Nate Oats was a high school basketball coach who taught mathematics. His subject matter was clearly no coincidence, as Oats continues to mesh his basketball IQ with his love of numbers.

Alabama plays one of the most modern, analytically driven styles of basketball in the college game. Only two of Division I's 362 teams took 2-point jump shots at a lower rate than the Tide.

Instead, Oats' team is focused on getting looks from the 3-point line and at the rim. In the regional final against Clemson, Alabama's shot chart was nearly Oats' masterpiece, with just one shot from inside the arc but outside the paint.

The Tide's challenge on Saturday: Can they score against UConn from either of these two areas?

In the paint, I'm skeptical.

Illinois entered its Elite Eight date with the Huskies with a clear directive from head coach Brad Underwood to attack the rim and UConn center Donovan Clingan. As Underwood himself said in his mid-game interview, "We're going to keep going at him. If he blocks 100, he blocks 100."

Well, it wasn't quite 100 blocks, but Clingan dominated the Illini's drivers. In the 22 minutes Clingan played, Illinois scored just 14 points on 5-of-38 shooting.

In the entire game, Illinois went 9-of-44 in and around the paint, proving that backup center Samson Johnson was also effective in protecting the rim.

Oats is smart enough to learn from Underwood's mistake. He's said as much in the lead-up to this game.

That leads to the Tide's second area of attack: outside the arc.

Alabama is one of the most prolific 3-point shooting teams in the country, ranking in the top 20 nationally in 3-point rate and fourth in attempts per game. Alabama has five games this season with 40-plus attempts from deep, and all five came against power conference foes.

That group of games includes an early December loss to Purdue in Zach Edey's hometown of Toronto.

The Tide's game plan in that contest likely mirrors what we'll see on Saturday. In that game, Alabama took 46 3s, 14 free throws, and just 18 2s. Alabama shot incredibly well, making 19 of those long-range shots (41%), including eight makes by Mark Sears.

However, it blew a nine-point second-half lead and lost that game.

It's just not feasible to make 10 2-pointers over the course of a 40-minute game and expect to come out on top, especially with a defense as shoddy as the Tide's has been at times this year.

And that's if Alabama shoots great, which is no guarantee.

The Tide are shooting 41% in the NCAA Tournament and 44% in their last two games — both ahead of their season-long percentage. If the shots aren't falling from deep, it's really hard to see how Alabama keeps pace on the scoreboard. That's what happened earlier this season when the Tide shot 8-of-40 from deep and lost to Arizona by 13.

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At a certain point, it's hard to find anything to say about this run by UConn, other than comparing it to other historic spans by some of the great teams in college basketball.

If you're hoping and praying for a good game or an Alabama victory, even history says there's a chance for March Madness to happen (in April). Of the three teams to enter the Final Four with a larger point differential than UConn this spring, only one ended up as champions.

The list of the best college basketball teams of all time and the list of annual NCAA champions is not a perfect match. The best team loses all the time. Finding a path for this team to lose seems unlikely, but it's not impossible.

UConn is not undefeated, though its losses are pretty bulletproof.

The Huskies' first loss came in perhaps the hardest environment to win a game as a road team: Allen Fieldhouse at Kansas. In that game, the Jayhawks made over 60% of their shots from deep and only beat UConn by four points.

In the Huskies' second loss, Clingan suffered an injury and UConn shot just 4-of-21 from outside the arc, losing at Seton Hall.

Lastly, in UConn's toughest conference game at Creighton, the Bluejays made 50% from deep (14-of-28), while the Huskies hit just 19% (3-of-16). Those nights happen sometimes.

Connecticut has now gone 10 straight NCAA Tournament games without one of those nights — at least not to the degree it couldn't find another way to win.

Alabama's path to competing here will have shades of its own narrow loss to Purdue, plus each of UConn's losses.

The Crimson Tide need to hoist more than 35 3s and make a good deal of them. Even that might not be enough, though, if the rim-happy Tide can't supplement those 3s with any paint scoring.

That's because, at the other end, Alabama's iffy defense is being asked to slow down the country's top-ranked offense.

Unless UConn has a catastrophic shooting night, Alabama will struggle to defend Dan Hurley's long, patient set offenses, Clingan around the rim, and UConn's active rebounders on putbacks. One way or another, UConn is going to score.

Alabama fans and bettors praying for a cold shooting night from UConn don't have the math on their side either. The Huskies already shot 3-of-22 versus Northwestern and 3-of-17 versus Illinois, both in blowout victories.

Unless the shooting splits are outrageous on both ends of the floor, UConn has too many answers.

Nate Oats is 3-0 against the spread as a double-digit underdog in his time at Alabama, winning two of those games outright. This UConn team is another animal. The Huskies are far better than the Crimson Tide and a bad matchup.

Pick: UConn -11.5 or Better

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