There will be games like this, starting next month when SEC play begins, when Alabama basketball can't quite find an offensive rhythm. Games like the Crimson Tide's 81-54 home win over Kent State on Sunday, when one of the nation's most prolific offenses gets off to a slow start. Games that demand a grind.
And those will be the nights its defense will need to play like it did against the Golden Flashes.
In a word, it was suffocating. Crimson Tide guards stuck to ballhandlers like gum on a shoe sole, defending well above the 3-point line, and made penetration into the lane difficult at best. Its big men loomed near the basket, forcing hurried adjustments and blocking shots around the rim. Forward Grant Nelson set the tone early with a blocked shot on KSU's leading scorer, Voncameron Davis, one of seven on the night for UA's interior defenders.
Kent State missed 20 of its first 23 shots from the floor and didn't score its 10th point until 6:45 remained in the first half. It was a rattled team entering the break, scrambling to find room to breathe anywhere near the basket. Even worse for the Golden Flashes, Alabama didn't incur the constant stream of fouls that often accompanies physical, harassing defensive play; the visitors got to the free throw line just 13 times.
"The most efficient way to score is getting to the free throw line, so if you're trying to have an efficient defense, you've got to keep teams off the free throw line. I thought we did a pretty good job of that," UA coach Nate Oats said. "... I thought our guys did a pretty good job of staying on the ground, using their length not buying shot fakes and making them shoot tough, contested shots."
It was fine timing for that kind of defensive effort.
UA missed eight consecutive shots to open the game itself, a stretch that included three turnovers and a shot-clock violation. It took Alabama five minutes to score its first field goal, by Aden Holloway. That wasn't the only rough patch against a Kent State defense that entered play ranked 33rd out of 364 teams in the nation in defensive efficiency. Oats lamented Alabama's charitable turnover rate -- it coughed up 19 of them -- on what was an off night for its shooters. UA connected on only nine of 35 3-pointers and barely made half its free throws (18 of 35).
Nothing solves the problem of cold shooting better than a tough defense.
And with conference play beginning in just two weeks -- the SEC is looking stronger and deeper than ever -- Alabama gave itself a well-timed reminder of that on Sunday.