The modern evolution of the game of basketball has had a slow trickle down effect throughout the years. The NBA was revolutionized by a skinny kid from Davidson almost 15 years ago, Steph Curry and the Warriors when they popularized small ball, a style of play that doesn’t involve traditional positions, rather it focuses on off ball movement and playmaking to create historically high scoring volume. While all that has been true for the better part of a decade, it hasn’t hit the college level full force, until now.
The chart seen above is the Alabama Crimson Tide’s shot chart against the Clemson Tigers in the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament. Every shot taken was either inside the paint or a three pointer, with the exception of an Aaron Estrada mid range who Nate Oats allows to take mid range shots. This game is no outlier for a Nate Oats team, he has helped bring the analytics side of the game down to the college level. The former math teacher and Buffalo head coaches believes the efficiency of paint touches and three point shots make the midrange shot not even worth taking.
“So for playing open-That’s why we play fast, to be most efficient, but we definetly are trying to push the ball up the floor and attack them before they ever get set up.”
-Alabama Head Coach Nate Oats with Alex Weber
This approach to the college game isn’t uniquely Alabama, however, it is vastly different compared to other contenders in the 2024 season. Matt Painter has had great success with an old school post presence, with Zach Edey. The seven foot four, three hundred pound beast has the Boilermakers in the Final Four right along with the track stars in Tuscaloosa.
If two polar opposite styles can both end with a trip to the final four, which one is more sustainable if either one of them are? In the NIL era, roster re and deconstruction makes consistent deep tournament runs nearly impossible (hat-tip Dan Hurley). If simply watching the tournament teaches anything, it teaches that teams will get hot, and teams will get cold. That simple reality cannot be calculated with a formula or a spreadsheet. What the data will tell you is shots at the rim are much more sustainable than twenty five footers.
The big man can still exist on a Nate Oats’ team. However, they are put to work as stretch fives and rim runners. The problem is they are typically undersized and don’t have the shooting skills to fully commit to a small ball lineup. Nick Pringle illustrates this well. He has limited size on the interior and no outside shot to speak of, but remains effective by creating second chance points alone. However, when facing a disciplined rebounding team he has trouble impacting the game.
Strong back to the basket bigs have also given Alabama problem throughout the season and made it tough for Oats to coach through it. Players such as, Johni Broome, Zach Edey, Omar Ballo, PJ Hall, and Zvonimir Ivisic have all been the driving force beating the tide. While Alabama has made the run to the final four it has been largely matchup dependent and could have ended differently if they were dealt a different hand.
The conversation about whether the college game is evolving into the NBA is nuanced. While professional styles have become more mainstreamed and certain archetypes are slowly being abandoned in order for players to have a chance in the league, College will never become the NBA. The AAU culture of youth basketball has hindered development to the point were European basketball is taking over the league. Colleges will continue to have raw undeveloped players that need less schematically advanced and individually skill demanding systems in order to win games. The big men that dominated twenty years ago, still dominate today, and they will dominate in twenty years as well.
Nate Oats is a good coach who, after enough bites at the apple, finally had a team click at the right time. The game hasn’t changed, the Crimson and White haven’t revolutionized college basketball, it’s just March Madness.
