TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama basketball coach Nate Oats hasn’t forgotten his centers’ stat lines against Creighton in 2023. The Crimson Tide’s two bigs in that game were Mohamed Wague and Nick Pringle, who combined to commit 10 fouls in 31 minutes in the Bluejays’ 85-82 win.
Creighton center Ryan Kalkbrenner also feasted in the paint despite missing a portion of the game with a foot injury. Kalkbrenner finished with 19 points and eight rebounds, dominating Alabama’s bigs to fuel Creighton to a win.
The two teams will play a rematch in Tuscaloosa on Saturday. Kalkbrenner returned for his fifth season with the Jays and is leading the team with 17.3 points and 8.4 rebounds per game. Alabama reloaded this offseason with a better frontcourt, adding Rutgers center Clifford Omoruyi and five-star freshman Aiden Sherrell.
Omouryi is leading the Tide with 1.8 blocks and is second in rebounding with 6.8 boards per game. However, Omoruyi has been limited in a few outings due to foul trouble and elite shot-blocking numbers have dropped off after arriving from Rutgers, where he averaged 2.9 blocks per contest.
“He’s been in a little bit different system, playing tougher teams,” Oats said. “I think he was third-best in block rate in block rate in the country last year, highest among high-major guys, but their schedule was a little different in the non-conference than ours is too. So, he had some real high-block games against some lower-level competition that we haven’t played nor will we play here because even the three mid-majors games we have left are really good teams. So, I think he’s been good, trending towards a lot better than good, but I think we’ve got room to improve still.”
Despite a slower start from Omoruyi and some lingering struggles in the paint this season, Oats is expecting better results when Alabama matches up against Kalkbrenner this time around given a deeper unit in the post.
The main issue Oats foresees in defending Kalkbrenner will be how much Alabama sacrifices guarding players on the perimeter to make sure he doesn’t get easy access to the rim. Creighton is only shooting 33.7% from 3 as a team, but Oats stressed the Jays have multiple players who can heat up from deep. That will affect how often Alabama doubles on Kalkbrenner or fronts the post to deny easy access, leaving shooters open beyond the arc.
“These guys move the ball really well,” Oats said. “They find the two-on-ones and when the two-on-ones are with two elite shooters and two elite passers all of a sudden you’re giving up 3s. Some teams have had success whether it be doubling or fronting. So we’ve had some debate as to how we guard it and we may have to go with multiple options when we look at guarding him.”
Alabama can use its loss to Purdue as a blueprint for not to against a skilled big. Though the Boilermakers don’t have a player of Kalkbrenner’s size, they were able to exploit one-on-one mismatches and take advantage of Alabama in the paint.
Fortunately for Alabama, it’s had several players step up their rim protection this season. Grant Nelson did a solid job against Kalkbrenner last year when his teammates ran into foul trouble. Along with Sherrell’s presence inside, Alabama has had steady production from Jarin Stevenson and rapid improvement on defense from Mouhamed Dioubate.
Overall, Oats stressed that Omoruyi will have to step up his game and defend without racking up fouls for Alabama to have an effective game against Kalkbrenner. How disciplined the Tide stays in defense will dictate the game as Creighton looks to play out of double teams and find shooters.
“Cliff’s gonna have to step up to the challenge and play a little bit better,” Oats said. “We didn’t stress our post-D going into that Purdue game like we should’ve in hindsight. I didn’t think it was gonna be an issue. The fact that Cliff doesn’t have to guard the post ever in practice makes it a little bit harder for him to be a great post defender because he’s not going against a great post player every day in practice. But I think he’s more than capable of being good, and against these dominant post players where they like to feed the post players we probably need to play him a few more minutes.”
Kalbrenner provides and excellent test for the Tide’s defensive resolve and strategy. Should the Tide come up with the necessary answers Saturday, it should be able to come away with another resumé-boosting win and gain confidence on the defensive end ahead of the start of conference play.
Alabama tips off against Creighton at 7:30 CT Saturday inside Coleman Coliseum. The game will be broadcast on SEC Network.
