Nate Oats breaks down Alabama's full-court press against Tennessee

Alabama fell to Tennessee 68-59 on Wednesday night, snapping a four-game winning streak for the Crimson Tide. Could Alabama’s full-court press have made a difference?

Coach Nate Oats didn’t seem to think it would have made a huge difference when asked about it postgame.

“Yeah, I mean we haven’t needed it,” Oats said. “We were fifth in the country in defensive efficiency coming into tonight, so our defense has been pretty good.”

That’s not to say that Alabama isn’t capable of running the full-court press or that the idea of using it more is without merit.

“When you get down you’ve got to go to it,” Oats said. “We do have enough depth and we can go smaller or quicker at the five with (Noah) Clowney. You could tell Charles (Bediako) wasn’t 100% tonight. We tried to play him some, he just wasn’t himself so we kind of went away from him in the second half.

“But yeah you could put a rim protector like Charles back there.”

Alabama full-court press available in a pinch

Though Alabama hasn’t encountered many situations where it would need the full-court press, Oats likes having it in his back pocket if necessary.

The truth is Alabama simply hasn’t played from behind that much this year. Wednesday’s loss was only the team’s fourth all season, with the Crimson Tide having risen to No. 1 in the nation in the rankings.

“Hopefully we won’t need to go to it too much,” Oats said. “We haven’t been down like that late in a game much this year, but if we need to we can go to it.”

Alabama will look to get things back on track on Saturday against a Georgia team that has started to find some rhythm lately, with a game set for a 6 p.m. ET tipoff on the SEC Network.