How Alabama is Planning for Mouhamed Dioubate During Ramadan
Alabama is about to face indisputably the toughest three-game stretch among all of men’s college basketball as the No. 6 team in the country will face No. 5 Tennessee, No. 3 Florida and No. 1 Auburn to close the regular season.
The Crimson Tide will then head into the SEC Tournament for games against this year’s best conference in the sport and will then play in the NCAA Tournament. Head coach Nate Oats and company will need to have every player at their best from here on out, but that could be a diffiicult task for Alabama forward Mouhamed Dioubate.
Dioubate, who leads the team for the most Hard Hat awards due to his renowned hustle and winning plays, is Muslim and Friday evening is the first day of Ramadan. He’ll have to fast from eating and drinking from sun-up through sunset until March 29––the first day of the Elite Eight.
“Amanda [Branson] is our nutritionist, so it mainly affects him in that way because he can’t eat until sundown,” Oats said during Friday’s press conference. “So she’s been trying to get him gradually worked into having meals between sundown and sun-up. And you know, tomorrow I think will be the first game where he can’t eat after the sun comes up. So he’s going to have to get himself a good meal before the sun comes up.
“I just told Amanda, ‘Don’t wake me up when you wake up Mo.’ He’ll be up before the rest of us to make sure he’s eating. But he seemed to handle it pretty well last year. This will be a game––It’ll be 4 p.m. CT here, I don’t know when the sun goes down here––but he may not be able to eat until after the game in this one.”
Alabama made the Final Four last season and Dioubate was a member of the historic team. In other words, he had to fast for Ramadan during the 2024 NCAA Tournament as well. One of those games was in the Round of 32 against Grand Canyon, where the Crimson Tide outlasted the Antelopes 72-61.
