Nate Oats speaks about progress from Alabama showing competitiveness

Nate Oats has been looking for an improved competitive nature out of his team, especially now as the enter conference play. That effort came with some mixed results in their opener in the league this past weekend.

Oats analyzed how Alabama finished off their 78-75 win at Vanderbilt on Saturday afternoon. On one hand, he thought that their work from the 12 minute mark down to the four minute mark in the second half was good enough inside Memorial Gymnasium. However, on the other hand, how they finished the game against the Commodores over the last four minutes was not.

“I thought we were better from 12 to eight and eight to four. Then the last four was not at all what we’re looking for, to be honest with you,” Oats said. “I thought we were better at the 12 to eight than we’ve been.”

While Alabama played well overall, at least well enough to win, they didn’t close either half well against Vanderbilt.

In the first half, the Crimson Tide took as much as an 18-point lead in Nashville. Then, after cutting it down a tad, the Commodores closed the half on a 9-0 run to shrink the halftime margin down to just four.

Come the second half, Alabama again earned a double-digit lead that reached as much as 13 points. Still, after letting Vandy hang around, the Commodores made a push at it again. That included a 14-6 run over the final four minutes to cut what was an 11-point lead with three and half left to just two with five seconds left.

Again, the Tide put on an acceptable enough performance to win their first conference game of the year, especially on the road. With that said, they’ll have to be more cutthroat, especially at the end of halves, to get where Oats wants them to be moving forward.

More on Alabama’s opening conference win in Music City

Alabama moved to 9-5 (1-0 SEC) on the season after beating Vanderbilt (5-9, 0-1 SEC) by a score of 78-75 on Saturday.

There were some impressive moments for the Crimson Tide throughout this game but they’re still lacking the consistency needed to play at a level Nate Oats is comfortable with.

Alabama’s leading scorer continued to be just that on Saturday. Mark Sears put up a game-high of 21 points while going 3-5 (60%) from beyond the arc. Sears also added four rebounds, three assists and three steals.

Alabama has South Carolina coming up next. The Gamecocks were picked to finish last in the conference going into the season. Hoeever, they’re currently 13-1 (1-0 SEC) with their lone loss being to Clemson team that’s been ranked in the Top-25. The Crimson Tide will welcome them to Coleman Coliseum with tipoff set for 6 p.m. CT (7 p.m. ET).