This isn’t just another reboot of the Tide: Along with Arkansas State, McNeese and several others, this is a quality low-major that will contend for the NCAA Tournament and has made three appearances in the last four seasons.

When the Jacks faced quality opponents this season, they were a justified PITA for most opponents; Don’t let the balance sheet fool you. They gave Colorado everything the Buffs could handle in Boulder and were down to two baskets with two minutes left before CU ended the game. And in their only matchup against a common opponent, SDSU defeated McNeese.

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History of the tape: SD State (No. 119 9-5) vs. Alabama (No. 5, 10-2)

Spread (Total): Alabama -20.5 (O/U 169.5)

Opponent KenPom: 119 (124 Attack, 136 Defense, 141 Speed)
Opponent Evan Miya: 113 (154 Attack, 96 Defense, 20 Speed)
Opponent Bart Torvik: 112 (240 Attack, 331 Defense, 187 Speed)
Opponent NET: 119 (Q3)
Opponent’s best win: 89 (McNeese)
Opponent’s worst loss: 166 (Northern Colorado)

Alabama KenPom: 9 (7 out, 42 defense, 7 pace)
Evan Miya: 8 (7 out, 21 defense, 1st pace)
Bart Torvik: 8 (5 out, 35 defense, 5 pace)
NET ranking: 10 (6-2 Q1/2)
Best win: No. 4 (N) Houston
Worst loss: No. 27 at Purdue

If you were to build a platonic example of a quality, ready-to-go NCAA team out of the low majors, you could do worse than the South Dakota State Jackrabbits. They play a traditional C/PF/F/SG/PG look. They rank in the top third in the country in scoring, post shooting, floor shooting and three-point shooting. They rank in the top 20% in rebounding, assists, scoring defense and assists per possession. They are a very physical rebounding team with a great center, lots of length, excellent team free throws, and have some scorers on the outside that allow SDSU to beat you in a variety of ways.

SDSU ranks in the first third nationally in defense, offense and pace and is just an all-around solid team. They are trained properly, act strategically and play very well in team basketball – especially compared to their talents in the lower major leagues. While Mo Valley may be a soccer powerhouse, its accompanying basketball league (Summit) isn’t up to par. But as we saw at Bismarck, even lower-major talent can make you shine if you don’t put in the effort for forty minutes. SD status does I also put in the work.

That work begins in the post as Alabama faces another dominant big man, this time Oscar Cluff. The senior Australian is a double-double machine, he has scored nine goals in 14 games, and he has only had two bad games all season. At 6’11,260 he’s also an absolute liability. Big Cliff will have his hands full trying to avoid being bullied by this clone of Steven Adams, who averages 17 a night on 11 boards. And Cluff is great at making passing plays from the double to find spot-up shooters on the sidelines. There’s a reason he also leads the Jacks in assists.

Although Cluff is the heart of the offense, he’s not the only one. Sixth man F Stoney Hadnot plays taller than his 6’3″ and is a very smooth rebounder and good scorer. That pair, along with Mors and Whorton starting off the bench, is why SDSU bounces back so well. SDSU averages nearly 40 rebounds a night, and the Big Group is responsible for about 28 of them per game. For this reason they are a very A dangerous team in the post if you don’t have their physicality and positioning – they fit well with open shooters and excel at second chance looks.

The Jackrabbits are weakest in the backcourt. They don’t turn the ball over much between the troika of Kalen Garry, Owen Larson and Joe Saylor, but they don’t defend particularly well either. SDSU ranks in the bottom third nationally in assists allowed per game. If there’s one biggest weakness here, it’s this. It’s not a great shooting club either. But we’ve seen how this worked in other games. If the ‘Bama guards are not prepared to defend themselves, they will be burned. Although the starters and the sixth man in the backfield don’t shoot spectacularly, they still score points competently and are also very selfless. SDSU averages an assist on over 50% of its plays. Nothing SD State does from the perimeter can scare you, but where the guards do their real damage is inside 18 feet and off the dribble. The Tide needs to do a much better job of defending this than they did in Chapel Hill against penetration attempts and certainly at preventing mistakes on missed shots.

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Here’s how to watch

Sunday, 2:00 p.m. Central at Coleman on SEC+ (that might as well be on the Ocho).

forecast

The last time we met I said this:

The Tide will shoot poorly from distance, they will get outrun far too often, they will make some inexplicable defensive mistakes, they will commit too many stupid turnovers but force few turnovers of their own. And in the end they simply outperform the opponent who plays harder.

Some of this once again bore fruit. Alabama was terribly sloppy with the ball. They collected 37 rebounds – including far too many second-chance attempts – against a team they excelled at. And Alabama just wasn’t great from the outside…again. The defense has been very good, especially around the rim, and they need to keep that trend and put pressure on the ball to keep SDSU from feeding Cluff. More importantly, Alabama will need this again to keep Cluff from being easy to see in the backfield.

Over the last five games, Sears is averaging 21 per game with 4.5 assists and nearly half a dozen rebounds. In four of them he exceeded the 20-point mark. The lone subpar game? “Bama’s loss to the Ducks.” The saving grace for the Tide in their barrage of cold shots was that one of the other guards showed up alongside Sears. Last week it was Holloway.

But as Mark goes, so goes the tide.

We will say that this particular trend continues, that Alabama Platoons Oscar is still allowing too many freebies and second-chance rebounds, but is able to pull ahead late against a Jacks team that has been very wary of ball movement: SDSU will openly give up shots .

This is the last game before the SEC schedule begins, and anyone who wants to make a case for sitting on a shortened bench will do so now.

However, 21 Bama is a lot when you consider this team’s deficits and cold shots, as well as considering SDSU as a quality borderline T2 opponent. That seems like too much. When it comes to totals, I’m agnostic because it’s easy to imagine a game where both teams have over 80 points, but Bama on the money line and SDSU +20.5 are probably the safer bet. However, I would like to be pleasantly surprised by Alabama playing a complete game.

Alabama 89
SD status 73

Hope for the best.
Roll Tide.