Alabama Basketball G11 vs Arkansas State

Alabama head coach Avery Johnson takes his team to Arkansas for a 6 p.m. Wednesday game.

(file photo)

The question distracted Avery Johnson. The exchange that followed spoke to where Alabama basketball stands two years into the transition from six years of Anthony Grant into this evolving new era.

The Crimson Tide are preparing for a 6 p.m. Wednesday game at high-scoring Arkansas. The Tuesday news conference was a few minutes deep when Johnson was asked about preferring a lower scoring game in Bud Walton Arena.

"There are a lot of people who think I like to play in the 60s," Johnson said, interrupting the question with a laugh, "which is further from the truth."

Johnson came to Alabama last season talking about cranking up the tempo, shooting early in the shot clock and creating issues defensively. They just aren't there yet. Help is coming next season, but the personnel in the program at this point still dictates a pace similar to the Grant era.

It's been working as of late.

Alabama (13-7) is tied for second in the SEC with a 6-2 league record with consecutive wins over Georgia and Mississippi State.

The Razorbacks (16-5, 5-3) are coming off a stunning 99-71 whipping at Oklahoma State. Before that, it came back from a double-figure deficit to beat Vanderbilt on the road.

Arkansas still scores 81.0 points a game, bringing this back to Johnson's preferred strategy Wednesday night and the practical one. His team still ranks last in the SEC in scoring (69.1 points a game). It has reached the 81-point mark just once in SEC play entering a game in which the Razorbacks will look to force a fast tempo.

Johnson said they're studying the three different pressures Arkansas uses. There are times to crank up the speed and take advantage of the numbers and other times to slow it down.

"We can't just play this game at fifth speed," Johnson said. "That's just not our game. I think we're a team that when we're kind of fluctuating between third, fourth or fifth gear, we're a little bit of a better team. I don't like to crawl the ball up the floor and play the game in the high 50s or low 60s."

The scoring numbers have been on the rise recently, too.

Alabama beat or matched its scoring average in five of the last six games as Braxton Key continues to emerge as the next-generation talent. The freshman dropped a career-high 26 on Georgia and 18 against Mississippi State to earn SEC freshman of the week honors.

The Tide have also improved one of the major weaknesses from early in SEC play. After ranking last in the league in free-throw shooting, it made a frankly surprising 31 of 36 foul shots (86.1 percent) in the win over Mississippi State.

"Coach has been telling us a couple secrets, a couple tricks he used from the NBA," senior guard Corban Collins said. "It changed a couple guys' routines."

Johnson again laughed when asked about the proprietary nature of his teaching. There were some tweaks to the routine when players like Key, Collins and Dazon Ingram stepped to the line. It's about staying consistent and flushing the failures without letting missed shots compound.

"Whether it was their mindset or their mechanics, their foot position on the free-throw line, how fast they shoot, getting your hands set on the ball -- a lot of different things we started to look at and break down."

After Arkansas, Alabama will be back in Coleman Coliseum for a 7:30 p.m. Saturday visit from Auburn.