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Alabama made a March Madness record 25 triples against BYU on Thursday night.
In a dazzling and at-times dizzying display of long-range shooting, the Crimson Tide completely overwhelmed the Cougars for a 113-88 win to advance to the Elite Eight. Alabama sits on the doorstep of its second-ever Final Four as a result.
“The way we shot it tonight. I mean, obviously, we’re not gonna shoot like that all the time,” coach Nate Oats told CBS immediately after the game. “We’re gonna need a few 3 on Saturday.”
But, as CBS Sports pointed out on social media after Thursday’s game, 3s were just about all Alabama needed to get past BYU. Had Alabama not made a single 2-point shot from the field, the Crimson Tide still would have won the game.
Alabama got 75 points from 3 and 18 points from the foul line against BYU. The Cougars scored 88 total.
The Tide finished with 25 makes on a tournament-record 51 attempts from 3-point range.
Oats has always been an analytically driven coach. His system seeks out the most optimized shots in basketball — 3-pointers and 2s at or around the rim — while attempting to minimize long 2s. Alabama was perfect in that regard on Thursday night. The Crimson Tide took only 15 shots inside the arc. Ten of those 15 shots came at the rim. (Alabama went 7-for-10 on dunks and layups.)
Sixteen of Mark Sears’ 18 shot attempts came from 3. Thirteen of Aden Holloway’s 14 shots came from 3. Eleven of Chris Youngblood’s 12 shots came from 3.
“That was a fun game if you like offense,” Oats joked after the game. “Listen, I’ve got to teach these guys some math. I told Sears there’s a thing called regression to the mean. His last 6 games, he was shooting 14%, 5 of 35. He’s not a 14% shooter, obviously. They had been going under ball screens just about every game we watched. I told both those guys, Holloway and Sears, man, I hope they go under us because we’re going to rain them.”
And that’s exactly what they did.
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Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
