Alabama men’s basketball is set to play 7 seed Saint Mary’s tomorrow night in the Round of 32 in the NCAA Tournament.
Friday’s first round games featured drama for both squads. The Crimson Tide was pressured and found itself down in the second half to 15-seed Robert Morris, eventually pulling away and winning 90-81. The Gaels went wire-to-wire with 10 seed Vanderbilt, winning 59-56 as the Commodores missed a potential game-tying shot in the waning seconds of the contest.
Here are the keys to this matchup between polar opposite teams.
Tempo
What jumps off the page about this matchup is the difference in pace that the teams play with. Alabama plays with the fastest pace in college basketball, while Saint Mary’s plays with the sixth-slowest based on possessions per 48 minutes.
This means that whichever team can play closest to their style will likely have the best chance at coming away with the win.
Alabama forward Grant Nelson talked about how his team plans to stick to its fast paced identity while trying to learn from some of the early success that Vanderbilt had versus the Gaels on Friday.
“They obviously play a lot slower than us,” he said. “I feel like they’re going to try to slow the game down. But we saw yesterday at the beginning of the game when they played Vandy, where Vandy pushed the pace early and they got off to a good start. So we’re going to, obviously, try to play our game of basketball and push the pace on them.”
Rebounding
The Crimson Tide has to bring a better effort on the boards on Sunday after losing the rebounding battle to Robert Morris 39-37 overall and 16-5 on the offensive glass in Round 1.
Saint Mary’s ranks second in the country in offensive rebounding percentage, so if Alabama continues to struggle at rebounding, opportunities to possess the ball could become rare, killing the tempo it prefers to play at.
“The emphasis is going to be on rebounding,” Alabama head coach Nate Oats said. “If we can defensive rebound, we can get some run-outs on these guys.”
He added that the focus is not as much on preparing for the game any differently than other matchups, but that the team needs to focus on coming away with rebounds.
“We’ve got to rebound, and we know it.”
Marciulionis vs Sears
Alabama starting point guard Mark Sears and Saint Mary’s starting point guard Augustas Marciulionis are two of the best at their positions in the country, making for a compelling matchup in the backcourt.
Marciulionis’ assist rate is higher than Sears, outdoing him 6 to 5.1, but Sears scores more points per game with 18.8 versus Marciulionis’ 14.3, which Oats attributes to the slower pace the Gaels play.
“If Marciulionis played at our pace, he’d probably score more points,” he said. “He’s very good at what they need him to do.”
Oats said that the thing to watch out for with Marciulionis is his ability to find his bigs for assists. In addition, Oats said that “he carves you up in your pick-and-roll coverage” and that “there’s no great pick-and-roll coverage for him, because whatever you use against him, he’s going to exploit it to some point.”
A major key to this matchup could be Sears and other guards’ ability to contain Marciulionis, keeping him from racking up assist numbers and keeping the 34.7% 3-point shooter from doing damage with his shot.
“He’s smart. He’s tough. He’s crafty. He hits big shots in big games for them, and he knows how to run their team, and it’s hard to get him out of his rhythm,” Oats said.
The Crimson Tide and Gaels will meet with a trip to the Sweet Sixteen on the line Sunday at 5:10 p.m. CT from Rocket Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. The game will be streamed on TNT.
