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When I spoke to Alabama coach Nate Oats Saturday night, he was driving home from the airport in Tuscaloosa, having touched down a few hours after the Crimson Tide’s 71-65 win at Houston. My first question, naturally, was how his team managed to come back from 15 points down with 16 minutes to play to beat the No. 1 team in America on its own homecourt. Oats, however, had no answer. He had been watching video of the game on the return flight, but the plane landed before the comeback began. “I stopped right at the worst part,” he said with a laugh. “Honestly, I’m trying to figure out how we got back in the game. I guess I’ll find out after I get home and finish watching it.”

There’s no mystery what happened. The why is a little more tricky. With the Tide trailing, 44-29, and 16:28 to play, Oats subbed in four players: Jaden Bradley, Rylan Griffen, Noah Gurley and Jahvon Quinerly. The first three are freshmen. This team is already quite young (No. 276 in the country in experience, per KenPom.com), and the idea of going even younger in that situation was counterintuitive, to say the least. Oats had no idea whether the move would work. He only knew that what the team had been doing to that point was not.

Before Oats made that mass substitution, Alabama had committed 14 turnovers, including 12 in the first half. It committed one the rest of the way. For a key 3 1/2-minute stretch in the second half, Alabama was playing with four freshmen. The youngsters dug in on defense, made timely shots, held their own on the boards, and hit clutch free throws. Most of all, they hung together, finally taking a one-point lead with three minutes to play. By the time it was over, Alabama’s bench had outscored the Cougars’ reserves, 27-10, and the upset was secured. “We’re tougher mentally than I thought we’d be,” Oats told me. “Our freshmen were pretty heralded. Sometimes those guys come in with a prima donna attitude, but I haven’t seen it yet. I hope I don’t see it at all.”

Coupled with the quadruple overtime win over then-No. 1 North Carolina on Nov. 27 in Portland, Alabama’s victory marked just the second time in history that a team has beaten two top-ranked teams in the same season. (Oklahoma did it in 1990.) It was a stark contrast from Nov. 25, when Alabama was outscored 30-15 over the last nine minutes in an 82-67 loss to UConn. The Huskies played a grown man’s game that day, repeatedly blitzing and hard-hedging the Tide’s ball screens. Houston doesn’t have quite the same scheme, but it also plays a physical style. “If we don’t play UConn, we don’t beat Houston,” Oats said. “They were super aggressive on defense, and they exposed us. We’ve spent every single day since then working on that.”

Alabama’s ability to be this good this early, despite being this young, runs counter to the current narrative in college basketball that says you gotta get old and stay old, mostly by using the transfer portal. Oats has had success with the portal in the past, and three players in the Tide’s rotation are Division I transfers — 6-1 junior guard Mark Sears (Ohio), 6-4 sophomore guard Nimari Burnett (Texas Tech) and 6-1 super senior point guard Quinerly (Villanova). (A fourth transfer, 6-5 super senior guard Dom Welch from St. Bonaventure, has not played yet because of a calf injury but should be back soon.) Another reserve, 6-9 junior forward Nick Pringle, is a junior college transfer. Still, few teams in America are this dependent on freshmen and winning big. Four of the Tide’s top six scorers are freshmen. Oats has four high school seniors already signed for next season.

“Everybody in college basketball is trying to figure out how they want to do it, because there’s no sure way,” Oats said. “I think you need some carryover with guys who can grow up in your program. So we’ll keep going after freshmen and then try to complement them with transfers when we need to.”

The most heralded of the newcomers, 6-9 forward Brandon Miller, is leading the Tide in scoring at 17.9 points per game (on 42.9 percent 3-point shooting) while also averaging 8.4 rebounds. Miller did not score a field goal against Houston, but Oats left him in the game because of his defense and rebounding. Miller also went 8 of 9 from the foul line, including 6 of 6 in the final minute, to seal the win.

The lowest-rated of the four recruits was the 6-10 Clowney. He ranks third on the team in scoring (9.4) and second in rebounding (8.3), and he had a team-high 16 points on Saturday to go along with 11 rebounds and two blocks. Clowney’s emergence has enabled Oats to play him extended minutes over the starting center, 7-foot sophomore Charles Bediako, who is an excellent rim protector but can be an offensive liability.

The danger with being so dependent on freshmen, of course, is that they can be unpredictable and inconsistent. That is a particular concern considering the excessive highs and lows Alabama experienced last season, mixing epic wins (Gonzaga, Houston, Tennessee, Baylor) with embarrassing losses (Iona, Davidson, Missouri, Georgia, Vanderbilt). That is a clear and present danger as Alabama gets ready to play Memphis at home on Tuesday and Gonzaga in Birmingham on Saturday. “We have to fight complacency as hard as we possibly can, especially after what we went through last year,” Oats said. “We could have easily lost to Houston. We could have easily lost the Carolina game. So it’s up to us to make sure our guys are locked in and ready to go.”

No doubt this young squad has some growing up to do, but it’s much farther along than anyone could have expected. The kids are all right, and they’re only going to get better.

Other Hoop Thoughts

• We are only 12 games into the Jon Scheyer era at Duke, but there is one noticeable difference between the way he is coaching his squad versus the way Mike Krzyzewski did: his use of the bench. Coach K was notorious for keeping his rotations short, and while the man did win a few games over the years, there were times when the Blue Devils’ lack of a bench came back to bite them in March. Yet, thus far nine Blue Devils are averaging 16 or more minutes, and a 10th, 6-5 freshman guard Jaden Schutt, might see a few more after he made all three of his 3-point attempts in Saturday’s 82-55 win over Maryland-Eastern Shore.

Looked at another way, Duke is currently getting 33.3 percent of its minutes from the bench. That ranks 119th in the country, according to KenPom.com. Here is where the Blue Devils ranked in that category over the previous 15 seasons under Coach K: 314, 306, 75, 232, 341, 314, 346, 310, 217, 305, 174, 197, 315, 144, 225.

When I broached this with Scheyer during a phone conversation on Sunday, he told me that he relies on associate head coach Chris Carrawell and the other assistants to make substitutions, at least through halftime. “They’ll make subs without me knowing,” he said. Scheyer did not come into the season intent on having a deep bench, but he has seen a lot of benefits thus far. “It’s a way to hold guys accountable,” he said. “When you’re on the court, you have to play hard, you have to play defense, you have to rebound. Otherwise, there’s another guy ready to come in.”

The question is, will it continue? It wouldn’t be a terrible thing if one or two players separated themselves from the pack and thus commanded more minutes. But many coaches tend to lose sight of the importance in developing confidence in the reserves because they are afraid it might lose them a game in January or February. This is the dynamic Scheyer will be managing the rest of the way, but it is striking that he would embark on such a distinct departure from his mentor this early in his career. “I don’t know if playing nine guys is my favorite thing, but the strength of our team right now is in numbers,” Scheyer told me. “One thing I’m seeing is that the more guys you play, the more buy-in you have. I don’t know if it’s going to stay this way the rest of the year, but I’m also not cutting it off just to cut it off. So we’ll see how it plays out.”

• When Marcus Bagley announced in July that he was pulling out of the NBA Draft and the transfer portal and was returning to Arizona State, it was cause for optimism in Tempe. The 6-8 redshirt sophomore forward battled injuries during his first two seasons, but he was a highly-ranked recruit who had shown some promise. It looked like he would have a major role on the squad when he averaged 12.5 points in 28.5 minutes as a starter the first two games.

Right after that second game, however, Bagley took to Twitter and revealed that he had a confrontation with Sun Devils coach Bobby Hurley. He deleted that tweet, but then he wrote another one complaining that Hurley had suspended him as a result of the confrontation as well as what he wrote on social media. Bagley has since left the team, and there’s no indication when — or whether — he will return. When I asked Hurley last week what the latest was, he gave his standard party line: “He’s stepped away from the team, and I’m not commenting beyond that.”

Based on the way the Sun Devils are playing without Bagley, it’s hard to imagine him returning anytime soon. Even if he wants to come back, there’s no guarantee his former teammates will welcome it. Aside from a one-point overtime loss at Texas Southern on Nov. 13, the Sun Devils have been terrific and extremely resilient en route to a 9-1 record. They overcame an 11-point second-half deficit to beat VCU in Brooklyn, a 15-point deficit to beat Colorado on the road by a point, and last Wednesday they trailed at SMU by 11 points late in the first half before going on a quick run and coasting to a 75-57 win.

Arizona State had a much easier time in Brooklyn on Nov. 17, when it waxed Michigan, 87-62. Former Wolverines point guard Frankie Collins is one of four players in the starting lineup who transferred in this season. The fifth starter, 6-1 senior guard D.J. Horne, came in two years ago from Illinois State. Ironically, Bagley was slated to be just one of two players in the rotation who spent their entire career in Tempe. Given all the new faces in the locker room, it’s impressive that this team has shown such resilience in the face of adversity.

“It’s probably the most together group I’ve had here,” Hurley told me. “They’re playing for each other, they’re playing the right way, and they believe now that we can get the stops we need if the game gets away from us.”

ASU has been down this road before. During the 2017-18 season, the Sun Devils started out 12-0 and climbed all the way to No. 3 in the AP poll, but they went 7-9 in the Pac-12 and barely made the NCAA Tournament as a First Four team. The team has a critical test Monday night against Creighton in Las Vegas and opens conference play at home against Arizona on Dec. 31. Still, ASU has already proven itself to be an outstanding defensive team (No. 17 nationally in adjusted efficiency per KenPom), and it has a dynamic set of guards who can make plays for themselves and each other. “It’s by far my most complete team,” Hurley said. “Because of the way we defend, we legitimately have a chance to win every game we’re in.”

• There are only seven remaining unbeaten teams, and surprisingly, New Mexico is one of them. The Lobos are in Year 2 with Richard Pitino, and their perfect record includes a pair of road wins over SMU and Saint Mary’s. The team has gotten a huge boost from Morris Udeze, a 6-8 senior center who transferred from Wichita State and is leading the team in scoring (19.1 points per game) and is second in rebounding (6.3). The other two top scorers are transfers who came in with Pitino last year — Jamal Mashburn Jr., a 6-2 junior guard from Minnesota, and Jaelen House, a 6-1 senior guard from Arizona State.

How good are the Lobos, really?  We’ll find out more this week when they play San Francisco on Monday in Las Vegas and Iona at home on Sunday. The Gaels, of course, are coached by Pitino’s father, Rick, who has his team off to an impressive 6-2 start as well. This will be the third time the Pitinos will coach against each other (Rick was at Louisville for the first two, while Richard was at Florida International and Minnesota), and it will be the 21st time in Division I history that a father and son will square off as head coaches. The dads have won 18 of those meetings, which came as news to the younger Pitino when I spoke to him Sunday night. “I didn’t know that, actually,” Richard said. “I’m assuming it’s because the dads usually have the better jobs.”

That may have been the case in their first two meetings, but this time around the teams appear to be more even. Richard told me he and his dad put the game together as a way to generate interest (read: revenue) for their respective programs (New Mexico will return the game in New Rochelle next year.) That aside, once the game tips off, the Pitinos will do what they have done all of their adult lives, and that’s coach ball. “The father versus son thing is nice, but this is also an important resume builder for both of us,” Richard said. “It’s not like it’s the NCAA Tournament, where if one of us loses, the season is over. So I don’t think it’s all that hard for him. The guy’s in the Hall of Fame. You think he’s worried about losing one game to me?”

Remembering Grant Wahl

When all the tributes came pouring in over the weekend for Grant Wahl, the prominent soccer journalist who died suddenly at the World Cup on Friday at the age of 48, a lot of people were surprised to learn that Grant spent many years as the lead men’s college basketball writer for Sports Illustrated. Grant and I worked that beat for many years together at the magazine. It was widely noted that Grant wrote the historic cover story on LeBron James (who offered some much-appreciated words for him Friday night), but for my money the best basketball story he wrote for SI was about the spread of the Princeton offense. The paterfamilias of that offense, Pete Carril, was an assistant coach in the NBA at the time, and he did not know until Grant told him that his offense was being replicated in so many places.

Grant and I loved to joke about the time I was assigned to write about Kentucky, which was problematic because the school’s coach, Tubby Smith, was not talking to SI at the time. I asked UK’s sports information director, Brooks Downing, if he thought it would be a good idea if I presented Tubby with an actual branch and call it my “olive branch.” Brooks thought Tubby would like it, and he was right. Tubby laughed when I gave him the branch, and then invited me to have a one-on-one conversation in his office.

Upon hearing of my success, Grant aimed to try the same tactic with another coach who had broken ranks with SI: Bob Huggins, then of Cincinnati. Grant broke a branch off a tree, walked into Huggins’ office and asked to see the head coach. As Grant was sitting there, Huggins walked through the waiting area. A moment later, Huggins called his administrative assistant into his office and said in his measured tone, “Tell that guy with the f—— stick to get the f— out of my office.”

The reference never got old. When Grant told me years later that he was writing a book about David Beckham, and that Beckham was not cooperating, I cracked, “Did you bring him a f—— stick?”

I was surprised when Grant decided he wanted to cover futbol full-time for SI. He was so good on hoops. I’ll admit, though, that a big part of me was relieved, because as long as Grant was on the college hoops beat, it was going to be near impossible for me to get plum assignments. He was just better.

Grant’s contributions to soccer journalism did wonders to grow the sport in America, but even though he was personally and professionally invested in the sport, he was unflinching when it came to making powerful people uncomfortable. That included his coverage of the World Cup in Qatar, whether it was the inhumane way the host country was treating migrant workers or the lengths it went to deny any expression of support for gay rights. It is fitting that one of the last images we have of Grant is the one he posted of himself wearing a rainbow shirt, which led him to be temporarily prevented from entering the stadium. I did not know at the time that Grant had a gay brother. In fact, it never occurred to me. It’s great that Grant’s brother felt so supported, but Grant would have done it anyway, because he knew that someone out there had a gay brother, and he would have believed that person deserved a champion.

That’s what Grant was: a champion. I will miss him forever and always.

Mid-Major Top 10

1. Saint Mary’s (8-3). The Gaels bounced back from their three-game losing streak by beating Missouri State and San Diego State. Freshman guard Aidan Mahaney, the team’s second-leading scorer, had a game-high 20 points against the Aztecs. Last week: 7

2. San Diego State (7-3). The Aztecs shot 3 of 15 from 3-point range and allowed Saint Mary’s to shoot 49 percent during a 68-61 loss on Saturday in Phoenix. They play Kennesaw State at home on Monday night and then get a much-needed eight-day break. LW: 1

3. Boise State (8-2). The Broncos passed their first road test on Saturday at Saint Louis. That was their sixth straight win, and their third over a top-60 KenPom team (Colorado and Texas A&M were the others). LW: 4

All of us are @Babybuzzo watching @marcus10shaver play 😂#BleedBlue #WhatsNext pic.twitter.com/xTVBYmFEc8

— Boise State MBB (@BroncoSportsMBB) December 11, 2022

4. Utah State (8-0). The Aggies overcame a 13-point deficit in the first half to beat Loyola Marymount, 79-67, in Las Vegas on Saturday. They only have one top-100 KenPom win, so we won’t know how good they really are until Mountain West play begins at the end of the month. LW: 2

5. New Mexico (9-0). The Lobos beat UTSA at home on Saturday, but this week they have legitimate tests against San Francisco in Las Vegas, and then the Pitino v. Pitino battle on Sunday against Iona in the Pit. LW: 5

6. UNLV (10-0). The Runnin’ Rebels remained undefeated with wins over Hawaii and Washington State, but only two of those wins have come against KenPom top 100 teams. They don’t play another until they host San Diego State on Dec. 31. LW: 8

7. UAB (7-2). The Blazers couldn’t pull off the upset at West Virginia on Saturday, but they are still No. 46 on KenPom and have home games coming up this week against South Carolina and Southern. LW: 9

8. Florida Atlantic (8-1). The Owls’ 76-74 win at Florida on Nov. 14 looked like a fluke at the time, but they have since won six straight and dominated Florida Gulf Coast, 85-53, at home last Wednesday. LW: NR

9. Iona (6-2). The Gaels beat St. Bonaventure, 72-57, on Sunday in Brooklyn to capture their fourth straight win. They play Princeton in Brooklyn on Tuesday and then head to New Mexico. LW: NR

10. Saint Louis (7-4). The Billikens fell at home to Boise State, 57-52, on Saturday for their second straight loss. All of their losses this season have come against top-70 KenPom teams. Their only game this week is at home against Drake on Saturday. LW: 3

Dropped out: Drake (6), Charleston (10)

Ten games I’m psyched to see

Creighton vs. Arizona State in Las Vegas, Monday, 9 p.m. ET, FS1. The Bluejays suffered their fourth-straight loss on Saturday to BYU in Las Vegas, but they had to play without their starting center, Ryan Kalkbrenner, who was out with a non-COVID-19 illness, and as a result they got pounded on the glass. Hopefully he’ll be healthy for this one, because Arizona State can score points in a hurry.

Memphis at Alabama, Tuesday, 9 p.m., ESPN2. The Tigers are coming into this game on a heater, having won six in a row, including Saturday’s 82-73 win over Auburn in Atlanta. SMU transfer Kendric Davis had a season-high 27 points in the win. Contrary to what we’ve come to expect from Memphis the last few years, the Tigers are the 12th-most experienced team in the country, per KenPom. The Crimson Tide need to avoid an emotional letdown coming off the big win at Houston.

UCLA at Maryland, Wednesday, 9 p.m., FS1. Since losing a pair of games in Las Vegas to Illinois and Baylor, the Bruins have won five straight, with the best of those wins coming at home against Oregon. It will be a much more difficult challenge to win on the road against a Maryland squad that took Tennessee to the wire on Sunday before losing, 56-53.

Creighton at Marquette, Friday, 8:30 p.m, FS1. The Golden Eagles improved to 8-3 with a win at home over Notre Dame on Sunday. They beat Baylor by 26 points at home on Nov. 29, so they are very capable of winning a shootout with high-scoring Creighton.

Indiana at Kansas, Saturday, Noon, ESPN2. The Jayhawks don’t have a midweek game, so they should be rested, ready and brimming with confidence in the wake of their 95-67 dismantling of Missouri. The Hoosiers also don’t play midweek, but they have lost two of their last three, including 89-75 to Arizona on Saturday in Las Vegas. Indiana freshman point guard Jalen Hood-Schifino hasn’t played the last three games because of a back injury, and it’s unclear whether he’ll be ready for this one. In the meantime, the Hoosiers need to rediscover their mojo on defense. They allowed the Wildcats to shoot 49.2 percent and score 1.27 points per possession.

Gonzaga vs. Alabama, Saturday, 1 p.m., CBS. Drew Timme and Julian Strawther are combining to average 34.1 points per game, but the Zags are still getting insufficient production from their guards. They’re also not great at defending perimeter quickness, which makes Alabama the worst kind of matchup for them.

Houston at Virginia, Saturday, 2 p.m., ESPN2. The Cougars are not going to be in a good mood after suffering their first loss. Then again, the Cavaliers are not going to be in a good mood after losing by 20 points at Houston last year. It will also be Virginia’s first game in 11 days, so it will be interesting to see whether the Cavs are rusty or rested. Either way, it’s going to be a low-scoring rock fight.

Ohio State vs. North Carolina in Madison Square Garden, Saturday, 3 p.m., CBS. The Tar Heels broke their four-game losing streak with a comfortable 75-59 win over Georgia Tech. It helped that they got Armando Bacot back (he had 21 points and 13 rebounds) after he missed the previous game with a shoulder injury. The Buckeyes knocked off Rutgers courtesy of a buzzer-beating 3 from Tanner Holden which should not have counted. Ohio State’s offense, which is ranked No. 3 in adjusted efficiency per KenPom, will put the Heels to the test.

UCLA vs. Kentucky in Madison Square Garden, Saturday, 5:30 p.m., CBS. This is a big week for UCLA. The Bruins have a talented freshman center in Adem Bona, but he is young and prone to fouling, and he’ll have his hands full with Wildcats forward Oscar Tshiebwe, who had 28 points and 12 rebounds in Saturday’s win over Yale.

Tennessee at Arizona, Saturday, 10 p.m., ESPN2. Once again, Arizona is oodles of fun to watch. The Wildcats lead the nation in adjusted offensive efficiency and rank fourth in tempo. Tennessee will counter with the nation’s most efficient defense, and the Vols showed during a 56-53 win over Maryland in Brooklyn on Sunday that they know how to grind. Which style will prevail?

(Top photo: Troy Taormina / USA Today)