Alabama men’s basketball has done well at making losing an outlier this season.

Lose a game, start a winning streak. That’s been the track record. It happened after the losses to Purdue (three wins), Oregon (eight wins), and Ole Miss (seven wins). Now, the Crimson Tide would be wise to follow suit after the 94-85 loss to Auburn on Saturday at Coleman Coliseum.

The performance against the Tigers left much to be desired. Alabama (21-4, 10-2 SEC) didn’t shoot well, its defense struggled in the second half, among other issues facing the country’s No. 1-ranked team.

That’s understandable. But if No. 4 Alabama wants to get back to winning, it needs to clean up some things. The way the loss transpired was far from what the Crimson Tide wanted, but it was only one loss. There’s plenty of basketball left, particularly against high-level competition. All of Alabama’s remaining regular-season opponents are ranked. That starts with No. 15 Missouri on Wednesday (8 p.m., SEC Network) at Mizzou Arena.

“What we have right now is a chance to play again on Wednesday,” Alabama coach Nate Oats said after the loss to Auburn. “We’ve got to answer the bell”

Here are three things the Crimson Tide must do to answer the bell and get back on track.

1. Move the ball better

Alabama finished the Auburn game with only eight assists, a season-low for the Crimson Tide. The next closest: 11 against Ole Miss, also a loss.

Alabama also tallied only eight assists in its loss to Auburn in 2024.

The Crimson didn’t move the ball enough offensively this past Saturday. It led often to less-than-desired shots. Certainly not efficient ones.

The formula for good offense that Alabama covets is the following: Offense = Spacing + timing + ball movement + player movement + reading/decision making.

The Crimson Tide fell short in multiple parts of that formula against Auburn, but especially ball movement.

“We missed a lot of reads,” Oats said. “We’ve got to be better. We’ve got to move the ball better. We’ve got to be a little more unselfish moving forward.”

2. Replicate efforts to minimize turnovers

Finally, Alabama fixed the turnover problem.

Oats had lamented it after game after game after game, and for good reason. Alabama tallied at least 11 turnovers in six consecutive games prior to Auburn. He even called out two of his best players, Mark Sears and Grant Nelson, for their recent propensity for turnovers.

Then Alabama improved and tallied only six turnovers Saturday.

This is a good reminder of how correlation does not equal causation. Yes, the Crimson Tide has turned the ball over a bunch and won. Then when it ties its season-low in turnovers, it lost. But turnovers are not a good thing, of course. Giving away possessions is not efficient basketball. Alabama might be able to weather the turnover storm on many nights, but why make life more difficult for yourself?

The Crimson Tide would be wise not to replicate many things from the Auburn game, but it does need to replicate its efforts in the turnover column. Alabama must continue minimizing turnovers, starting with the Missouri game. That could be the difference on the road. The Tigers’ defense has a turnover rate (turnovers divided by possessions) of 20.9% per KenPom, which ranks 28th best in the country; Missouri’s defense is also second among SEC teams in turnover rate during conference play.

3. Improve second-half defense

In every SEC game but one, Alabama’s defense has played worse in the second half.

The LSU game is the only outing where the Crimson Tide allowed fewer points per possession after halftime; The Tigers averaged 1.176 in the first half and .846 in the second.

Otherwise, every opposing offense has scored at a higher clip after halftime. The worst game was against Oklahoma: Alabama limited the Sooners to .784 points per possession in the first half before 1.351 points per possession in the second half.

The problem persisted against Auburn, too. The Tigers went from good to great in this statistic.

Over 12 SEC games, Alabama has averaged allowing 1 point per possession in the first half but 1.22 in the second.

Alabama needs to do what it takes to close games out better defensively. The Crimson Tide often starts strong but doesn’t play a full 40 minutes of stout defense.

Nick Kelly is an Alabama beat writer for AL.com and the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on X and Instagram.