TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Avery Johnson, Alabama’s new basketball coach, lapsed into the local dialect last month while answering a question about who would start at point guard in the season opener the next week.

“It’s been a pretty strong competition,” he said. “But there’s no quarterback controversy.”

In the land of the Crimson Tide, football touches everything. But Johnson, 50, who played 16 seasons in the N.B.A. and coached for parts of seven more with the Dallas Mavericks and the Nets, is not daunted by that fact; rather, he intends to use it to improve his team’s popularity and fortune.

“We’re going to leverage the success of football,” Johnson said in an interview in his recently renovated office.

Since then, the Tide have gone 7-2 as they seek to make the N.C.A.A. tournament for just the second time in 10 seasons.