The Extra Point: What Is Alabama Basketball's Most Difficult Non-Conference Game?

Alabama men's basketball and Nate Oats have done it again.

The Tide have a couple of things to iron out with their non-conference slate, but the schedule is loaded with preseason top-25 teams and Final Four contenders.

Rick Pitino and St. Johns, Matt Painter and Purdue, Tommy Lloyd and Arizona, Mark Few and Gonzaga, Brad Underwood and Illinois. Proven coaches and storied programs are on tap for the Crimson Tide in the first two months of the season.

This is the norm for Alabama under Oats. Last year, the Tide had a nonconference slate featuring national runner-up Houston, Creighton, Oregon, Purdue, North Carolina and Illinois.

The 2024 Final Four squad played top-five Purdue, top-10 Creighton, top-five Arizona and 2024 Elite Eight team Clemson.

You get the theme, and somehow, this year's schedule seems more difficult than prior years.

The toughest game out of this absolute gauntlet though?

Purdue at home on November 13.

The Boilermakers bring back three starters from their own 2024 Final Four team. Most notably, they return last year’s Bob Cousy Award winner, Braden Smith.

Senior Fletcher Loyer will join him in the backcourt, and Trey Kaufman-Renn had a breakout season last year, averaging more than 20 points per game on his way to first-team All-Big Ten honors.

Matt Painter and company also went overseas and plucked away Omer Mayer, who looks like a future NBA draft pick.

If that wasn't enough, the Boilers go ahead and bring back another 7-foot-plus monster in Daniel Jacobsen, who was out for the season last year.

They grow on trees in West Lafayette.

This will be an early test for an Alabama team replacing four of five starters from last year’s Elite Eight squad — a team that could have reached another Final Four if not for running into a generational talent in Cooper Flagg.

Alabama could be a very good basketball team, but it could also realistically start the year 1–4 in its first five games.

That's just how hard this schedule is.

After the first game of the season, against North Dakota on Nov. 3, and pending any changes, Alabama faces what will probably be its toughest four-game stretch of the season.

• at St. Johns

• vs. Purdue

• at. Illinois (in Chicago)

• Players Era vs. Gonzaga (in Las Vegas)

Nate Oats is throwing his team in the deep end and hoping they can find a way to swim.