Nate Oats reveals his confidence in Alabama depth following comeback win vs. Mississippi State

Alabama hoops tore through the first month of conference play, beating Kentucky and several others by 20 or more points to grab a hold on the SEC title race and position themselves for a one-seed in the NCAA Tournament with just two months to go until March. However, Wednesday night featured their first letdown performance, at least in the first half. The Crimson Tide fell down by double figures early to Mississippi State and even trailed at halftime.

However, the Tide roared back in the second and ultimately locked down a 66-63 win over the Bulldogs. Still a much closer call than it should’ve been. In that first half, where ‘Bama couldn’t get anything to work, head coach Nate Oats dug deep into the pockets of his bench to pull out Nimari Burnett and Nick Pringle, who he gave extended minutes to vs. MSU.

After the game, he complimented both players for being ready for the opportunity even though they’ve struggled to see the floor as of late. First, he spoke on Burnett:

“Burnett’s obviously been a starter for us, so I definitely have some confidence in him. He’s a great kid. I thought he was a little antsy to make a play, gambled on defense and then they kind of punched it to him. He gave up two buckets. But we’ve got a lot of confidence in him. He’s gotta get some game reps. Hopefully, we can get some separation from some teams and he can get back in game mode.”

Then on Pringle:

“And then Pringle played well against these guys last time, and he’s been playing well in practice. A lot of that with some of those guys that don’t play heavy minutes is how well are you practicing? I thought Pringle’s been really good in practice. I thought he got himself ready to go. He played pretty good against these guys last time. Charles (Bediako) wasn’t playing great, I thought (Noah) Clowney was struggling a little bit and let’s go with Pringle and see what he does. I thought he gave us pretty good minutes there in the first half.”

A coach never wants to see a bad half from his team. However, he seems to like what he saw from his deeper rotation guys when they had to be thrust into a tough spot after the poor start.