LAS VEGAS — Welcome, ladies, gentlemen and the college-basketball sickos who willingly stay up until 2 a.m. to watch basketball each November. It’s Day 1 of Feast Week, where No. 8 Alabama and No. 13 Gonzaga meet Monday night in the Player’s Era Tournament, a title that sounds like a crypto startup but is very much a basketball event, tipping at 9:30 p.m. on TNT in a half-empty gym, somewhere near the Strip in Las Vegas.
F1 and its influencer circus are long gone, the Raiders lost to the Browns and now, it’s time for us true sickos to watch some hoops in the desert. Now, this game may not qualify for the sicko’s slate, but the UNLV / Maryland game following it up at midnight sure does!
At the time of writing this piece, St. John’s and Iowa State are duking it out in a defensive duel on truTV, which feels like an Elite 8 game.
Baylor outlasted Creighton earlier, in what felt like a mid-day 8 vs. 9 game you watch at your office desk in the first round of March Madness.
Oh, and Seton Hall punked Will Wade’s NC State Wolfpack out in Maui at the Civic Center, because that once famed tournament is still in fact hanging on by a thread, where Boise State and USC scratch and claw towards 60 as we speak.
Alas, let’s break down the main course of Monday’s slate. It’s Alabama and Gonzaga. It’s Nate Oats and Mark Few. It’s New Blood vs. New Blood.
Drew Timme and Mark Sears may be gone, but this is a game you won’t want to miss, between a pair of programs who reload each and every season.
The Zags enter at 5-0, unbeaten, unbothered and carrying the confidence of a team that has never understood the word “rebuild.” Mark Few simply reloads, reshapes society, updates laws of physics and trots out another top-five KenPom squad, which already owns a blowout victory over Creighton. They sit fourth overall, eighth in offense and fifth in defense—basically a cheat code wearing navy and red, in their final season of West Coast Conference play.
Alabama arrives at 3-1, ranked eighth nationally, and playing offense the way your drunk uncle plays cornhole: all gas, no hesitation, physics be damned. The Tide come in 17th in KenPom, with the No. 7 offense because Nate Oats refuses to run anything resembling a ball screen that doesn’t end in either a layup or a 34-foot pull-up. But hey, it works. Alabama already has a pair of Top 10 wins on the year over St. John’s in Madison Square Garden and Illinois in the United Center, plus a close loss at home to No. 1 Purdue, which was tied with a minute left to play.
The Tide defense, ranked 34th, is better than last year’s “cross your fingers and hope” unit, but still not something you fully trust with your life.
Oddsmakers have Gonzaga favored by 4.5, with a 177.5 total—otherwise known as “Vegas thinks you degenerates love points.” And they’re right.
THE STARS
Alabama’s engine is Labaron Philon, who walks into his second season and immediately starts acting like he owns the damn program, (because he kind of does right now).
Philon’s been Alabama’s best player, a blur who scores 20,5 points per game, distributes and occasionally decides gravity is optional. When Philon gets downhill, defenders make the same face you make when you realize your phone is at 2% and the charger’s across the room.
For Gonzaga, Graham Ike—the big man who appears to have been built by an Idaho farmer who specializes in constructing barns, —has been a menace. He scores efficiently, rebounds anything shaped like a sphere and anchors a defense that treats the paint like a no-parking zone. Ike averages 17 points per game, with 9.2 boards to go with it.
Alabama loves to drive straight into the chest of shot-blockers, but Ike is the type of dude who ruins good ideas.
THE MATCHUP
Alabama wants a shootout. Gonzaga wants to run and defend, because they’re rude like that. The Tide will space the floor with four shooters, sometimes five, sometimes six if Oats starts drawing imaginary players on the whiteboard just to freak the Zags out.
It’s truly a sight to behold.
The problem for Alabama? Gonzaga actually guards. Few’s team rotates like they’ve installed GPS chips in their players. They’re long, disciplined and don’t get rattled by chaos—because Gonzaga practices against Gonzaga’s offense every day, and that’s basically trauma conditioning.
Still, Alabama’s offense travels, and when the Tide hit shots, behind the barrage of three ball’s from Holloway, Philon, Wrightsell, Mallette and Bol Bowen, they hit shots in biblical proportions. They’ll be comfortable in Vegas because people who shoot 40 threes a game tend to enjoy cities built on bad decisions.
WHAT TO EXPECT
Points. A lot of them. Probably more than you need. Probably more than God intended for one basketball game.
Alabama will try to turn this into a sprint. Gonzaga will happily oblige but will also try to make sure someone, somewhere, occasionally plays defense. The Tide’s spacing should open lanes, but Ike’s presence will test the bravery of every Bama guard who thinks he’s the protagonist in this story.
If Philon plays grown-man basketball again, Alabama will be right there. If the Tide gets cold, Gonzaga can put together 8-0 runs like they’re on sale at Costco.
BOTTOM LINE
Gonzaga is deeper, older and better defensively. Alabama is faster, looser and completely unconcerned with your feelings on how they dial up the offense.
It’s No. 8 vs. No. 13. It’s Vegas. It’s chaos. It’s points.
And it’s college basketball’s greatest pre-Christmas tradition:
Staying up too late to watch two teams try to outrun a scoreboard operator in November in some super random gym.
This has game of the tournament potential in Vegas. Two incredible coaches, two future March teams.
Alabama’s been more battle tested these first three weeks.
In the words of Pat McAfee, Give me Alabama!
Prediction: Alabama 92, Gonzaga 88
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