It has been less than a week since Alabama’s men’s basketball season ended in Louisville with a Sweet 16 loss to San Diego State, but some of the faces around a team that finished No. 1 in the Associated Press poll have already headed elsewhere.

Assistant coach Bryan Hodgson was introduced Monday as Arkansas State’s head coach, fellow assistant Charlie Henry had his introduction Wednesday as head coach for Georgia Southern, and Nimari Burnett entered the NCAA transfer portal Tuesday.

Reaction to Alabama’s 71-64 exit Friday night from the NCAA tournament has followed.

“Man, after that game, and as the game was closing in the last minute, it was like, this is not how I imagined it,” Burnett said Wednesday during his weekly appearance on The Next Round. “Especially us having a lead in the second half and us going on our typical second-half run.”

Alabama trailed 28-23 at halftime to the Aztecs but began the second half on a 13-4 run that created a nine-point lead.

“Like, oh yeah, we’re here,” Burnett said of the second-half lead. “Then for it to all to go away in a matter of a few possessions was very tough to see. That feeling creeped in and it was like, man, this is really over.

“We put in a lot of work this year and we had high aspirations, high goals of winning it all. And for that to come to the end like that, in that fashion — to a great San Diego State team but a team we also thought we could win against — it was definitely tough. In that locker room, of course our heads was down. We was just down about it, because we knew we had what it took to win it all. We have what it takes to win it all. It was definitely tough and sad in that moment, for sure.”

The wasted opportunity was something Nate Oats had earlier warned his team against. On February 28, the day before Alabama beat Auburn for the SEC regular-season title, he stressed the importance of peaking March.

“I think there’s an art to making sure they’re peaking in March. It’s definitely not a science. I tried to get them to peak in March every year, and it doesn’t happen that way all the time,” Oats said Feb. 28. “A lot of these guys have been playing basketball for 10, 12, 15 years. This is what they work for. Let’s not waste all the time we put in the gym for the last however-many years — even just since we got together the last week of May. We can’t waste all these hours we put in by not being prepared now. I mean, we’re in March. We need to peak in March.”

That did not happen as a shocked Alabama team headed home from Louisville instead of earning its first Elite Eight appearance since 2004.

“I didn’t think that would be our last practice, before San Diego State,” Burnett said.

Alabama’s uneven March began with its overtime win over Auburn, then a loss at Texas A&M. It won three games to capture the SEC tournament title, then had two solid but not spectacular victories to begin the NCAA tournament before falling to San Diego State.

The loss came 31 days after courtroom testimony revealed Brandon Miller and Jaden Bradley were at the scene of Jamea Harris’ murder Jan. 15 in Tuscaloosa, for which Darius Miles and his friend have been charged. But Burnett does not believe the scrutiny the team faced in the wake of the Miles arrest, and later the Miller and Bradley news, affected the team’s performance in the Sweet 16.

“I don’t think that was the case,” he told The Next Round. “We had a great season, all season. Guys were mentally tough and handled it great. We bonded with each other. Toward the end of the season, that didn’t change. That didn’t waver. Our love for one another, our togetherness and our chemistry on the floor, kind of showed that throughout the season and toward the end. We didn’t finish strong and I don’t believe it had to do with that, but it was definitely a tough situation, for sure.”

San Diego State entered the NCAA tournament ranked No. 14 in NET and as one of the most experienced teams in college basketball, something Oats noted was a stark contrast to Alabama’s lineup that included two freshmen in Miller and Noah Clowney.

Hodgson, who coached his final game Friday alongside Oats after eight seasons together, noticed it.

“In college athletics now, the phrase is, ‘You want to stay old.’ We just lost to San Diego State in the Sweet 16, and I think the average age on that team has got to be about 28. If it’s not, it felt like it,” Hodgson said Monday. “We’ve got a bunch of really talented freshmen out there [in Alabama]. And I knew when [San Diego] lost that game, they had a chance to win the next one and go to the Final Four. They’re veteran teams. You look at Florida Atlantic — that’s a veteran basketball team.”

It was a similar story for Alabama last season, when the Tide was bounced in the first round of the NCAA tournament as a No. 6 seed to No. 11 seed Notre Dame.

“We talk in college about veteran college players. I think it showed today,” Oats said after the loss in March 2022. “We definitely didn’t have the experience Notre Dame had with their guys that have played a lot of games. Just maturity, experience, those things go a long ways.”

Alabama, lacking experience, did have the edge over San Diego State in a different key metric. The Tide entered the Sweet 16 ranked third in KenPom.com defensive efficiency, while the Aztecs ranked sixth. Even so, the physicality of San Diego State’s defensive-minded group was something Oats emphasized to his players entering the game, and Aztecs players noticed Alabama struggling against it early.

“I was kind of, like, amazed by the depth of some of their quads and biceps,” Burnett said of Aztecs players’ bodies. “It was kind of crazy.

“But on the floor, as physical as it was — at least for me — it wasn’t all that surprising given we watched a lot of film on them. A lot of film on their personnel and how they play, how they get to the ball, how strong they are defensively, and that we would have to use our skill to beat them. Unfortunately we didn’t.”

The most skilled player on the floor, Miller, missed 16 of his 19 shots. Alabama’s two other guards, Mark Sears and Jahvon Quinerly, shot a combined 1-of-8 on three pointers.

“I think that skill, kind of, triumphs that [physicality],” said Burnett, who missed both of his shots in seven minutes on the floor. “And we could have done a better job at that.”

Mike Rodak is an Alabama beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @mikerodak.