Mark Sears, Grant Nelson reveal Nate Oats used media 'lowlight' jabs to fuel Alabama for Saint Mary's

The preview of No. 2 Alabama vs. No. 7 Saint Mary’s was as a matchup of two very different kinds of teams. The Crimson Tide took that personally, though, based on how they were seen going into the game.

Following the 80-66 win for the Crimson Tide over the Gaels, Mark Sears and Grant Nelson were asked about the thought that they were ‘soft’ coming in as compared to this opponent in the Round of 32. He said it was an emphasis for them, even to the point of Nate Oats cutting up the video of media members saying so about the two teams.

“Before the game Oats showed us a 1 minute lowlight tape of all the big time announcers basically saying we’re soft in nice words, so we all took that personal…”

Mark Sears and Grant Nelson talk about comments that gave them a little extra motivation tonight pic.twitter.com/qN6Hmx49w0

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“Oh, for sure. That was a, that was an insult, you know,” said Sears. “Before the game, Oats showed us a one-minute lowlight tape of all the big-time announcers saying, ‘Ah, they’re soft’ – basically saying we’re soft in nice words. So, like, you know, we all took that personal and, uh, we’re going to keep that mindset rolling throughout March.”

“Yeah, a little bit. I mean, we played all the best teams in the country. We played the most physical teams in the country. We beat pretty much all of them. So, I mean, it’s – this game tonight definitely shows where we’re at with that. We can play physical,” said Nelson. “I mean, we definitely do need to come out and do that more consistently. But that was a point of emphasis going in. So, I mean, we’ve got to continue to do that moving forward.”

Again, there was at least a perceived difference in how these two teams play because of their approaches. Alabama is more the offensive-focused one as the highest-scoring team in college basketball. Saint Mary’s is then the more defensive-focused one with a top-five scoring defense in the country.

However, that didn’t mean anything to Alabama. They proved that point too in how they played against the Gaels.

The Crimson Tide held Saint Mary’s to one of their fewer point totals of the season by keeping them below 35% from the field and at 21.4% from three. They did that also with as many combined steals and blocks as they themselves had on the other end. Then, with their own offense, ‘Bama looked unbothered by it all by shooting 51.8% overall and 41.2% from three with the point total being the most given up by the Gaels’ defense in just over three years.

Alabama made that statement with the fourteen-point win to advance to another Sweet 16. They’ll continue to keep it in mind too as they move on into the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament.