Nate Oats happy Nick Pringle has contributed since suspension

Nick Pringle logged his best performance of the season two games removed from a one-game suspension from the Alabama men’s basketball team.

Scoring a season-high 17 points on 8-of-9 shooting in 15 minutes off the bench, Crimson Tide head coach Nate Oats expressed the joy it brought him to see his senior big man thrive during Saturday’s 109-92 win over LSU.

“I’m so happy for Nick. He’s been up and down and in and out of the lineup and playing no minutes, some minutes,” Oats said postgame on Saturday. “His attitude has been great all week. His effort in practice has been great all week. I think he’s at the place where he needs to be mentally, emotionally. He’s here to do whatever it takes to help the team win. His teammates, the Mudita that we talk about that Coach (Patrick Murphy) talked to the team about, they were so happy for him.

“He got [a technical foul]. He’s emotional, and he was really fighting Baker down there, so I didn’t want to leave him in and have him get a quick foul again. I took him out and everybody was like, ‘Leave him in, leave him in.’ So I think I only had him out for about 30 seconds or so to let them calm down. … Went over to him like, ‘Nick, we calmed down? We good?’ So I put him back in. But all his teammates were super happy for him. I’m super happy for him. I couldn’t be more proud.”

On the season, Pringle is averaging 5.6 points per game and is Alabama’s seventh-best scorer statistically. Still, that didn’t stop Pringle, who is mostly a role player off the bench, to prove his worth on this Crimson Tide squad.

If Pringle can continue to play to that pace and take some of the load off starting big man Grant Nelson‘s back, that could make his case to play more minutes entering the home stretch of the regular season.

After a long seven days off, Pringle will get another opportunity to impress his coaches and peers this coming Saturday against Texas A&M at home. The Aggies are coming off a stunning buzzer-beating loss against Vanderbilt at home, but had just handled a top 10 ranked Tennessee 85-69 72 hours before.

Which Aggies squad will show up remains to be seen, but tip off is scheduled for Noon ET live on ESPN.