Nate Oats gives glowing reaction to Mark Sears reaching 2,500 career points

Nate Oats knows just what a valuable player Mark Sears has been for Alabama over the past three seasons. But just in case anyone else needed a reminder, Sears earned a piece of college basketball history Tuesday night against Vanderbilt.

With 21 points in a 103-87 win against the Commodores, Sears surpassed 2,500 points for his college basketball career. Speaking in a postgame press conference, Oats raved about the impact that Sears has had for the Crimson Tide.

“On the offensive end, he’s been as consistent of a guy as I’ve probably ever coached,” the coach said. “Pretty much every game, no matter how it starts, he ends up with 20 somehow. He did it again tonight and he ends up with 21. So when you’re scoring about 20 every night out and you get as many games as he’s played, I think he’s the 82nd player in all of Division I history with 2,500 career points. That puts him in some pretty good company. So congrats to Mark.”

Sears currently ranks 77th in Division I college basketball history with 2,510 career points. He played his first two seasons at Ohio, racking up 889 points, but has scored a grand total of 1,621 at Alabama.

The guard took over late and score 11 points in the second half to help the Crimson Tide pull away Tuesday evening.

“I thought he picked it up for us offensively there in the second half,” Oats said. “Put the ball in his hands late. Once they got it cut to eight, I thought Sears from there kind of took over a lot. We put it in his hands and kind of set the high ball screen for him. He got downhill, made some good reads, had some assists. He’s a guy you can really trust on the offensive end to make sure we get points.”

Sears helped lead Alabama to the Final Four last season before falling against eventual champion Connecticut. He finished as a second team All-American and first team All-SEC.

This year, Sears is average 19.0 points per game to lead the SEC in addition to 4.9 assists per game. The Crimson Tide have 12 more games remaining on their regular season schedule plus the SEC and NCAA Tournament for the guard to add to his total.

Although Sears is likely not catching Pete Maravich, who sits No. 1 with 3,667 points, he has a very realistic shot of making it into the top 25. Alabama next faces LSU at 7:30 p.m. CT on Saturday.