What is Alabama Basketball’s philosophy on the mid-range shot?

If you’ve been following the Alabama basketball team for any length of time since Nate Oats took over the program in the spring of 2019, you’ve likely heard jokes about the lack of mid-range shooting in the Crimson Tide’s offense.

Oats is known for running an offensive system that is heavily analytics-driven, a system that focuses on the most efficient shots, such as layups, 3-pointers and free throws, Oats said.

This has led to college basketball fans and announcers alike believing that the mid-range shot is “banned” in Alabama’s offense, and players who take the shot are immediately benched because Oats feels they took a bad shot.

Earlier this week, Alabama assistant coach Ryan Pannone was a guest on the Crimson Crossover podcast, where he explained the team’s philosophy regarding the mid-range shot and addressed some misconceptions about Alabama’s offensive system.

“That’s the biggest misconception about Nate Oats,” Pannone said. “He’s never benched a player, he’s never yelled at a player in the last year for taking a mid-range shot. He’ll bench you, and he’ll yell at you for not taking an open three-pointer. If you’re open and you don’t shoot, that’s an automatic substitution.”

Pannone explained that moving players away from the mid-range shot is more about teaching than punishing. Looking at the numbers, the coaching staff has a reason for wanting players to move away from a contested 18-footer, but the goal is for the players to understand that reasoning, too.

“Coach is all about education,” Pannone said. “He’s a teacher at his core. All he does all summer long is he doesn’t yell at you, he doesn’t make you run in practice, he just educates you. Like, ‘Hey, you’re shooting 35 percent on mid-range shots. That’s worth .70 points per possession. If you were to convert that into a three, that would be worth about 23 percent. How many 23 percent three-pointers do you want to make?'”

Analytics is baked into everything Alabama does. So much so that Pannone’s former boss in the NBA, New Orleans Pelicans executive David Griffin, called Alabama the “31st NBA team.” From style to system to terminology, everything Alabama basketball does mimics an NBA system, including trying to get more efficient shots than a mid-range.

“Oats is going to constantly try to teach guys and make them see that they like the style,” Pannone said. “He’s going to show them that if you redistribute those mid-range shots to try to drive to the rim to create more fouls, layups, three-pointers, that’s going to be your offensive leverage, that’s going to be your points per shot, that’s going to be our team offense. And then he’s going to teach them, that’s what the NBA is looking for.”

Pannone spoke in depth about two key players from Alabama’s Final Four team last season, both of whom came in as transfers with a habit of taking mid-range shots. One of the players couldn’t completely break the habit, while the other adapted his game and saw his efficiency skyrocket.

“Take Aaron Estrada,” Pannone said. “Aaron shot the most mid-range non-rim twos on our team, and he shot them super inefficiently. It would literally be the worst offense in college basketball. But Oats never took him out of the game, never benched him. I’d say he was about 38 percent on non-rim twos for the year, which is 0.8 points per possession, which is a terrible offense.”

With Oats, the answer was never to bench Estrada, take him out of the game, or any of the other myths people see Oats do when he sees a mid-range shot. But what Oats really wants is an adjustment similar to what Latrell Wrightsell did, and the numbers speak for themselves.

“If you look at Latrell Wrightsell, Latrell was a heavy mid-range player a year ago at Cal State Fullerton,” Pannone said. “I would say he was the top three- or four-hundredth most efficient player in college basketball. Last year he was fourth in the country in offensive efficiency because he stopped taking mid-range shots. This is one of the best shooters in college basketball, and mid-range shots are inefficient.”

But while most medium-range shots are inefficient, Pannone explained that the timing of a medium-range shot is paramount.

“Our fans need to understand that there’s nothing wrong with shooting mid-range twos, it’s when you shoot them,” Pannone said. “A mid-range two is worth less than 40 percent or .8 points per possession at the college level, why would you take that with 12 seconds on the shot clock, when you have 12 seconds to create a foul, layup or three. You want to fight the tendency to settle until there’s four seconds or less on the shot clock. At that point, they’re shots on goal.”

If you look at some of the best players in the NBA, there are a handful of players who are good enough to take a mid-range shot and it’s a good shot. Kevin Durant, DeMar DeRozan, even former Alabama star Brandon Miller are all efficient mid-range scorers at the next level. But in college, it’s a rarity that a player is efficient enough to take a high volume of mid-range shots when other, better shots can be found within the offensive system.

“What people have to understand is there are a handful of players in the NBA that can do that at an efficient level,” Pannone said. “Steph Curry and Dame Lillard also shoot close to 40 percent from the halfcourt, that doesn’t mean it’s a good shot for everybody.”

Pannone boiled Alabama’s mid-market philosophy down to four simple steps:

“It’s communication, education, redistribution, fighting the tendency to settle. But four seconds or less, hey, take a medium-range shot.”