Video: Avery Johnson Looks Ahead to the 2018-2019 Season

As the top ranked Alabama Crimson Tide continues to dominate the gridiron, Alabama men's basketball will soon embark on the 2018-2019 campaign.

Although the program lost Collin Sexton to the NBA, the Crimson Tide returns most of the roster from last season's NCAA Tournament team.

In addition to the return of experienced players such as Riley Norris, Donta Hall, Dazon Ingram, Avery Johnson, Jr., Alabama adds Texas transfer Tevin Mack and Hazel Green High School standout Kira Lewis to the roster.

Following their first practice of the season, head coach Avery Johnson talked about the upcoming season with reporters.

Last season, Alabama scored 72.3 points per game with Sexton averaging 19.2 points per game. The Crimson Tide's head coach emphasized the need for balance with the loss of one of the SEC's top scorers.

"Hopefully we'll be a little bit more of a balanced team. I don't know if you're going to see a 19 or 20 point scorer, but hopefully we'll get more guys in double figures." Johnson said.

The fifth year Alabama head coach further elaborated on areas where the team can improve..

"We know for us to become better offensively, number one, we got to take better care of the ball." Johnson said. "We got to become a better offensive rebounding team. We got to become a better free throw shooting team, a better spacing team, got to get more baskets in transition and continue to do all of those things that we do well defensively and still improve in terms of defensive rebounding."

Later in his visit with reporters, Johnson provided an injury update on Dazon Ingram and Diante Wood along with progress reports for Riley Norris returning from injury and Kira Lewis' transition to college basketball.

Alabama faces Montevallo in an exhibition game October 30 and opens the regular season November 6 against Southern University from the SWAC.