After a much-needed week off for the guys to focus on exams, the 12th-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide get ready to welcome in the top-ranked team in the country – the undefeated Arizona Wildcats. The game will be played in Legacy Arena at the BJCC in Birmingham Saturday night for this year’s edition of the C.M. Newton Classic. Tommy Lloyd’s team has been a total wagon this season, most recently beating the brakes off of Auburn (an increasingly regular occurrence for Bruce’s son!) 97-68 in Tucson last Saturday. They’ve complimented that win with victories over Florida, UConn, and UCLA, each away from home. As difficult as Alabama’s schedule has been in non-conference play so far, this might be the toughest test on the slate.
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How to Watch
What: The 2025 C.M Newton Classic: #1 Arizona (8-0) vs #12 Alabama (7-2)
Where: Legacy Arena at the BJCC – Birmingham, AL
When: 8:30 pm CT, Saturday
TV: ESPN
Line: Tide -1.5 (!)
When you think about how to build a dominant basketball team in the year 2025, Tommy Lloyd basically followed that script to a tee with his roster – multiple bigs who can run the floor and own the glass, a game-changing wing like Koa Peat (15.9 PPG, 5.5 RPG, 3.1 APG on 56.3% shooting), a couple of knock-down shooters, and a veteran point guard to bring it all together like Jaden Bradley (14.5 PPG, 2.9 RPG, 3.8 APG on 58.8%/53.8%/78.4%) – perhaps you’ve heard of him? Zona is big (7th in average height), but fast (36th in tempo). Skilled (22nd in eFG%), yet physical (8th in OREB%). And they rank in the top ten in both offensive (9th) and defensive (10th) efficiency. There’s basically nothing that they do poorly. This is probably the best team Lloyd has had in his time in Tucson, and they look remarkably like the elite Gonzaga teams that he was an assistant with in the late 2010s.
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Yet the Tide is favored. Any questions?
Three Keys to Victory
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Shoot the Lights out in Legacy. I guess I’ll ask and answer my own – how does Alabama win this basketball game? It may seem pretty simple, but for the Tide to win Saturday night, they have to trade Zona’s twos with Alabama threes. We all know how Nate Oats operates at this point, and the Tide has a bunch of quality shooters on the team. Alabama is 7th in the country in 3PAs as a percentage of FGAs. Arizona is 363rd. Despite having a couple of guys who can really knock down perimeter shots – the Wildcats are 44th in the country in 3P% – they don’t really attempt all that many. Both teams like to get up and down the court, but where Alabama is looking to push the pace to get open looks from the arc, Tommy Lloyd just wants his guys to get downhill and attack the basket. Arizona gets about 20% of their total points from three-pointers, Alabama gets nearly 40% from downtown
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Compete in the Paint. Another fairly obvious point here – Arizona is huge with 7’2 Motiejus Krivas joined in the frontcourt by a bunch of 6’8-ish wings. As mentioned, the Wildcats are top ten in OREB%; however, their OREB% allowed is barely top 100 in the country. That’s an area Alabama needs to keep pace in – Oats’ guys are pretty good themselves about hitting the offensive glass for extra possessions. The Tide’s guards will play a huge role here, not just battling for boards, but also getting into the paint offensively. Jalil Bathea looked like a true difference maker as an offensive playmaker against UTSA last week – if he can join Labaron Philon and Aden Holloway as creators in the drive and kick game, Alabama’s offense could be as good as it gets in college basketball. We haven’t seen anywhere near the ceiling for where this offense could go, in my opinion. But it starts – not on the arc – but in the paint.
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Transition Defense. I think it all ultimately boils down to this. Whichever team does a better job getting back on defense will win this basketball game. If Alabama can deny all of those easy at-the-rim transition buckets that Arizona feasts on, while simultaneously getting consistent open looks on the other end, the Tide will have a great opportunity to dethrone the #1 team in the country. As Oats would tell you – math is math. If Alabama’s shooting open threes while Arizona battles for contested twos, the odds are in the Tide’s favor.
This is the last – and maybe greatest – test of non-conference play. A win Saturday night in Birmingham would send signals to the SEC and the rest of the country that – while some other teams in the conference have been disappointing – the Tide remains a true contender nationally. I’d argue a strong finish to the out of conference slate would put Alabama squarely as the favorite to win the SEC. Arizona has looked incredible early on – forming a quartet of early Final Four favorites with Duke, Iowa State, and – of course – Michigan, who has looked utterly terrifying with UAB transfer Yaxel Lendeborg leading the way. You can’t ask for a better opportunity than this.
I’ll be on hand for this one, but I encourage anyone not making the trip to meet back here for the Game Thread. Roll Tide y’all, and Hope for the Best.
