'Bama's kids are caught in wrong place, wrong age

Dispatches from the long March, Day 6

Nathan Mensah

College basketball in 2023 is no country for young men. Al McGuire once said that the best thing that can happen to freshmen is that they become sophomores. The worst thing that could happen to Alabama’s top-seeded youngsters happened Friday night in Louisville. They ran into adults.

San Diego State slapped around the Crimson Tide the way you’d dismiss your little brother. The Aztecs won, 71-64, and limited Alabama to 32.2 percent shooting. Freshman Brandon Miller, who will be seen next on a stage with NBA commissioner Adam Silver, shot 3 for 19 and had nine points with 11 rebounds. San Diego State thus plays Creighton for a chance to join what might become the most novel and unlikely Final Four in tournament history. Neither school has gotten to a regional final before.

The turning point might have been when the Crimson Tide entered the building and didn’t get carded. There are age-group guidelines in many levels of youth basketball, but not in college, and Alabama found itself trapped in the park against guys in blue jeans and high tops who nevertheless knew every crack in the asphalt.

Of the eight most essential San Diego State players, seven are seniors and one is a junnior, and three are transfers. Alabama has four transfers, but also two freshmen and a sophomore in its rotation.

The instant eligibility for transfers, and the “Covid year” extension, has created several clubs like San Diego State, although few are as ferocious defensively or as sculpted physically. The Aztecs won a Mountain West conference that outperformed the Pac-12 this season. When you’re in trouble at Wyoming or New Mexico or Boise State, you don’t flee the premises (for one thing, it’s cold outside). You hang in, like the Aztecs did when Alabama flashed its credentials at the beginning of the second half.

Nick Pringle put ‘Bama ahead 48-39 with 11:40 left. The Crimson Tide did not score for the next 4:27, a period that was marked by two turnovers by Miller and three missed layups by Alabama, which often happens when you’re in the same paint as San Diego State center Nathan Mensah.

It became a 25-7 run by the Aztecs, who did not allow the quickest-playing team in the country a single fastbreak point.

As this was going on, top-seeded Houston was getting planted by Miami in Kansas City, setting up a regional final game between the Hurricanes and Texas, and eliminating all four top seeds for the first time in the current format.

Miami’s most important players are all in their third year or more, except for one sophomore. ACC Player of the Year Isaiah Wong is a fourth-year junior, and Nijel Pack, who drained seven threes at the most backbreaking times against Houston, is a third-year soph who transferred from Kansas State.

Houston, which did not lose a game outside its home court until Friday, is not inexperienced but does use three first or second-year players, including freshman Jarace Walker, who might be an NBA lottery pick. Walker scored 16 on Miami but missed 12 of 16 shots.

San Diego State has been only waiting for this moment to arrive. It has been a tough nut for years now, even predating Kawhi Leonard. Coach Brian Dutcher has a 149-46 record. Viejas Arena is a steep nightmare for visitors, and the Aztecs, with little competition other than the Padres, averaged 12,261 fans this season, most of them noisy.

This is almost 3,000 fans per game better than what UCLA drew at home, and would be second only to Arizona in the Pac-12, which is dissolving into pieces like Austro-Hungary. The Pac-12 should be honored to admit San Diego State, but there’s a certain snobbery among the Regents about the Cal State university system. The Aztecs would be competitive in the money sports and in the non-revenues alike, and San Diego is a huge, under-served market. The remaining basketball coaches, no matter who they are, will not welcome the Aztecs.

San Diego State won this game with one field goal from Matt Bradley, the transfer from Cal who is the team’s only double-figure averager. Bradley didn’t get that bucket until 2:12 remained. The Aztecs figure somebody will score at some point. As long as they padlock the hoop on their end, they don’t worry about it. .

Much of that responsibility belongs to Mensah, who is 6-foot-10 and is the Mountan West Defensive Player of the Year. He is 24 years old and lost the 2020 season because of the same type of pulmonary embolism that ended the NBA career of Chris Bosh.

Mensah used the extra time to graduate and is now chasing his master’s in business administration. The Aztecs won their first 20 games in that aborted season and thought they had a Final Four opportunity. On Friday, Mensah blocked five shots, got eight rebounds and drew four fouls from Alabama.

The season ended like a head-on collision for the Tide, which was the top-seeded team in the whole tournament and finished 31-6. The burden got heavy, and not just because of basketball.

Miller was allowed to play after he had driven his car to the scene of what became a murder in Tuscaloosa on the night of Jan. 14. Teammate Darius Miles and his friend Michael Davis, who is not affiliated with ‘Bama basketball, were arrested for capital murder, and Miles’ gun was in Miller’s car. Miller’s lawyer maintains that the freshman did not know the gun was in the back seat when he came to pick up Miles, and Miller did not see the text from Miles that asked Miller to bring his gun.

Coach Nate Oats and the athletic department were ripped comprehensively, and maybe a little hysterically, for letting Miller play, particularly after Miller and his teammates kept doing a pat-me-down routine during player introductions, a habit that Oats stopped. The local district attorney said there was no reason to charge Miller, and the police called him a cooperating witness. So there was no reason to bench Miller, aside from optics.

But Oats, who is in his first really high-profile coaching job, stepped on himself when he blithely said Miller’s involvement was a case of “wrong place, wrong time.” Last week, Alabama defensive back Tony Mitchell was arrested, and coach Nick Saban said, “There’s no such thing as being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” That seemed too acute to be a coincidence, but Saban later said it had nothing to do with Oats’ comment, and added, “I don’t watch basketball coaches’ press conferences.” (Nor should he.)

Alabama’s departure removed the SEC from the tournament. There are two Big 12 schools in the Final Eight, and two from the Big East. The ACC, Conference USA, the Mountain West and the West Coast have one apiece.

Like everything else about the tournament, conclusions are dangerous. What we do know is that Alabama, and any other team that relies on teenagers, is in the wrong sport right now, with the wrong crowd.

Elsewhere:

Miami 89, Houston 75: Houston’s opponents were shooting 36.6 percent and scoring 57.5 points per game. No one had scored over 77. The Hurricanes shot 51.7 percent and Pack’s 26 points was the best game by a UH opponent. “He took the shots we wanted him to take,” said Kelvin Sampson, the Cougars’ coach. “The problem was that a lot of them went in.”

Texas 83, Xavier 71: Texas and UConn are in the best groove of any remaining teams. The Longhorns got 18 from Christian Bishop and 16 from Sir’Jabari Rice, both off the bencch, and they made 14 of 22 shots. Texas cruised even though Dylan Disu, its best player during the first weekend, played only two minutes with a foot injury that makes him questionable for Sunday’s game with Miami.

Creighton 86, Princeton 75: This might have been the most offensively precise game of the tournament so far. They combined to shoot 18 for 45 from 3-point land, and the Blue Jays hit 58.2 percent of their shots. Baylor Scheierman hit five 3-pointers and Ryan Kalkbrenner, again, was the key force inside, making nine of 12 shots. Still, Princeton looked right at home, as Ryan Langborg struck for 26 points.