Nate Oats critical of post play in Mississippi State win

Alabama Basketball went on the road Wednesday night and ripped out the hearts of a ranked Mississippi State team (the first one of those in four years) to open SEC play, leaving Starkville with a 78-67 victory over the Bulldogs. They did so mostly thanks to perimeter stars such as Brandon Miller and Mark Sears.

In the post, head coach Nate Oats was disappointed by the effort. After his team failed to slow down Gonzaga’s Drew Timme in the Tide’s most recent loss, Oats wanted to see a better effort against Bulldog front-line. Instead, he was still upset after the win because he thought his bigs fouled too much, even though they were effective in stopping MSU star center Tolu Smith from hitting very many shots from the field.

So here was Nate Oats on the play of his front-court:

“You know, we didn’t do a very good job on Drew Timme. I didn’t think we did a great job on Tolu Smith to be honest with you. I know, he’s 1-7, but we probably fouled them a little too much. So we’re gonna have to continue to work with our post guys. And some of the fouls weren’t — you know, Charles Bediako, tough call late on a verticality clip there that I that was a tough one. That wasn’t necessarily guarding totally, since he helped on somebody else. So we gotta figure out a way to keep our bigs out out of foul trouble with Oscar Tshiebwe coming up, because he’s obviously a load.”

A lot of excellent big men in the SEC, and several more after Oscar Tshiebwe that the Tide will have to face. Sure, Alabama has a lot of inexperience down low, where Noah Clowney is just a true freshman while Charles Bediako is a sophomore. That’s your two main dudes right there. So it’s understandable that those guys are having trouble with the Timme’s and Oscar’s of the world — because those are two senior All-Americans from last season. Throw Tolu Smith in there and that’s another senior big the Tide are facing.

With bigs especially, experience is so vital. So for these older bigs like the ones mentioned and like Zach Edey and the other dominant true bigs out there, age is a factor. None of them could close to compare the players they are now vs. who they were as freshmen and sophomores. The developmental gap is immense.

Nate Oats is going to need his younger bigs to mature in a hurry if Alabama is going to be capable of defending the best bigs in the SEC on a weekly basis.