Nate Oats analyzes how Alabama flipped the switch vs. Ole Miss

Alabama looked out of sorts during the first half of Wednesday’s road matchup against Ole Miss. Trailing by as much as 14 points, the Crimson Tide were able to eventually crawl back and comfortably defeat the Rebels 103-88.

The game’s momentum shifted during an eight-minute stretch between the final four minutes of the first half and first four minutes of the second. During that time, the Crimson Tide went from trailing by 11 to taking the lead and never giving it up.

Alabama outscored Ole Miss 28-12 during the run, which head coach Nate Oats credits for helping the Tide secure their 20th win of the season.

“I don’t know exactly why we were so locked in on defense, but those eight minutes were probably our best eight minutes defensively,” Oats said postgame. “And I told our guys, like, we want to play fast. And Ole Miss doesn’t play necessarily slow, but this was a 72-possession game. We like to get over 70. We had over 80 against Kentucky.

“Obviously, they had 117 points, but we want to play fast. It’s a lot easier to play fast if you’re actually getting stops, you don’t have to take the ball out of the next. So I tell them, the defense has been an issue. You’ve gotta play defense to win games. But if you really think about it, our offense will get better if we play better defense.”

Alabama ultimately ended the game with a whopping six players scoring in double figures during the contest. While they still gave up 88 points — which Oats wants corrected before this weekend — the Crimson Tide tallied 77 points in the final 24 minutes of regulation.

There wasn’t some awe-inspiring pep talk in the Alabama locker room at halftime. Instead, Oats revealed that the message to his team was straight forward. Simple, yet effective.

“We saw that we could make a run, we cut it to within three. Let’s come out and really make a run in the beginning of the second half, and that’s what we did,” Oats continued. “We turned them over five times. We had the ball moving, had a lot of assists. So we played pretty well. I think we maybe had five [offensive] boards, and they had five turnovers the first four minutes of the second half if I remember right.”

Alabama will look to continue its momentum into the weekend as they battle Tennessee in a cataclysmic SEC showdown. The winner will gain sole possession of first place in the SEC standings, and be in the driver’s seat to win the regular season title with two games left on their schedule afterward.

The opening tip between the Crimson Tide and Volunteers its scheduled for 8 p.m. ET live on ESPN