Nate Oats on Grant Nelson's success: 'He needed it'

Alabama fell behind big time in the first half of their Wednesday evening game at Georgia, but behind excellent second halves from Grant Nelson and Mark Sears, the Crimson Tide erased the deficit to pull off the comeback victory in Athens.

Particularly, the game was massive for Nelson, who was really struggling in conference play after a blistering start to the year in the non-conference, when he averaged over 14 points per game. But in seven SEC games leading up to the UGA matchup, Nelson was scoring just 8.6 points per game and shooting 44% from the field and 21% from 3.

Against the Bulldogs, Nelson came through in a major way, contributing 20 points on 8-11 shooting, including the bucket to give ‘Bama its first lead at 66-64, and then back-to-back threes with under two minutes to go to effectively push the lead out of reach at 79-73 with 1:21 remaining.

After the game, Nate Oats was thrilled to see Nelson enjoy a breakthrough moment in league play.

“Huge. He needed it,” the Alabama coach said of the pair of late threes. “Grant Nelson showed he’s got some toughness to him, some mental toughness.”

Oats explained that, despite low percentages, Nelson has proven himself a capable shooter in practice all year long. He just needed to prove it.

“He’s struggled to shoot the ball. He’s been shooting 40 percent from three in practice. We trust him to make shots. He’s done a good job not taking too many but taking appropriate ones, and those two he hit late in the game were huge. I mean, they sealed the game for us.”

An improved three-point stroke from Nelson is also a very positive development for the offense as a whole.

“We needed him to start making some threes at the five for us. We played him a few minutes at the four tonight, most of the minutes at the five. So he probably played 20+ minutes at the five. If he can draw opponents’ fives out away from the perimeter, that helps our offense even more.”

Oats continued, praising Nelson for stepping up in a huge moment in the face of a pretty tough last month of play, especially when it came to his outside jumper.

“So, he showed he’s a winner. He showed the moment doesn’t get too big for him. He didn’t shy away from it. We’ve got a lot of guys that I thought played hard. So this is a big win. If you’re going to try to win the conference, these are games you’ve got to win on the road.”