Everything Nate Oats said after Alabama's 111-73 win over Mississippi State

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – No. 6 Alabama defeated No. 24 Mississippi State, 111-73 on Tuesday night at Coleman Coliseum. After the Crimson Tide’s sweep of the Bulldogs, Alabama head coach Nate Oats spoke to reporters. Here is everything Oats said after win No. 23.

Oats’ opening statement…

“That was a little bit better start than what we’d had. I think it was the first time we’ve led at the first media timeout since Arkansas. We’ve been stressing that, a little bit better sense of urgency to start games. I thought Labaron’s sense of urgency to get stops on Hubbard was really good. That’s what we need out of Labaron every night. I thought he played great. He ended up with 10 and five with only two turnovers. It’s one of those deals where when you just get really locked into the right stuff and you lose yourself in the game, the offense becomes a lot easier. He shot 2-of-5 from 3, contributed to 22 3s we made. I was happy with his defense.

“But there’s other guys that took their turn on Hubbard that I thought did a pretty good job. I thought Sears had some moments on him. And he scored 21, but he got a lot of those late after we were up 30. I thought when the game was still undecided, particularly in the first half, he only had six. I liked our sense of urgency on defense. Labaron’s defensive leverage was a +19, and it showed because he did a really good job on their best player. I thought Youngblood was really locked into getting stops and trying to hold guys accountable, and he was +36 in his defensive leverage. I thought Cliff had a sense of urgency these last two games and did a little bit better than what he’s had, and he was +21 on the defensive leverage. 

“So you kind of look at the guys that were positive on the defensive end and see Grant was positive, Sears was positive on that defensive end. And that’s what we’re stressing. That’s what really trying to get out of the guys. And the offense will take care of itself, as long as we don’t turn it over and we get on the O boards. I thought late we gave up too many O boards, but we ended up still out-scoring them on second-chance points, 21-15. And I thought our pace on offense, the way we moved the ball, we took care of it. It obviously helps to make shots. We shot almost 50% from 3. That helps everything set. And then you get your defense set.

“We’ve tried to go a little lighter, get the guys’ legs back. Typically, when we go Saturday, Tuesday, the only off day we’d have on the week would be Wednesday, tomorrow. We gave them Sunday off. We tried to go pretty light yesterday. I think it’s paying off. Our guys’ legs are a little more fresh. Youngblood looked great. I thought Sears, Labaron. I thought Grant, with him not practicing yesterday with the shin bruise he had, I thought he looked great with his effort. 

“So all in all, a good win. Mississippi State is a good team. It wasn’t their night tonight, but shoot, they’re still a tough team. We barely out-rebounded them on a night when we forced a lot of misses from them and there were a lot of rebounds to get, they still play hard. So I think this one’s going to go a long ways because they’ll bounce back and get some wins here soon, I think.”

Oats on being 9-0 in games where Mark Sears has seven or more assists…

“I’m really good when he’s distributing like this. And I’ve been telling you guys, he’s been playing his best basketball of his career on both sides. For him to have a positive defensive leverage, that hasn’t always been the case. When he just gets locked into getting stops, doing winning things, doesn’t care who scores. I mean, when he was getting close to 10, he really wanted to make sure he got 10. CY was telling him, ‘You know who to find.’ So I don’t know if that assist to CY was his 10th – it was either his ninth or his 10 because that came after we had the timeout where CY said, ‘You know who to find.’

“He was happy. He was happy CY scored 27. We talk about ‘Mudita.’ I thought Sears was really happy for everybody else that was able to get in the scoring column, and he was able to get some assists. And yeah, we definitely will show highlights of this. What are we, 9-0 in his entire career here, is that what it is? When he’s got at least how many assists? Seven. So that’s the magic number. Just draw up a lot of plays to get Sears assists moving forward. I think a lot of the assists come in the flow, though, not necessarily designed. He’s just attacking downhill, making the right reads.”

Oats on Sears saying the players can’t feel any sympathy on defense in the second half; how close is this to the best version that this Alabama team can be…

“I wasn’t happy with the defense in the second half. We’ve only had one game that we had a better defensive efficiency in the second half. That was the LSU one where we weren’t very good in the first half. So we better be better in the second half. We weren’t better in the second half again today, and you could use the excuse it’s hard to play with a lead. If you’re immature, it’s hard to play with a lead, hard on defense. 

“If you’re mature and it’s about getting stops and you’re not playing the scoreboard, you’re playing the guy across the line from you, if you will. You’re trying to dominate him every possession. You’re not giving up free looks. I was a little perturbed, especially in the group there in the end, I feel like they scored on us every possession to close the game out. I think they had 61 going into the final media and ended up scoring 12 in the last four minutes of the game. That’s not what we’re trying to do. So yeah, we’ve got to get a little bit better sense of urgency play with a lead, and we can’t do it. 

“I told the guys, I think Georgia was up 25 on Florida tonight, and Florida came back and cut it to two at one point? Oh, Florida took the lead. So there you have it. So they’re up 25 and then Florida comes back and takes the lead. It’s why you can’t relax when you go up 20, 25, whatever it is. And that’s a huge win for Georgia. But I was trying to tell our guys before the game and the game was decided. Actually, I told them at the half. I didn’t realize Florida had taken a lead.

“But we had a case in point tonight. You’ve got to take care of business when you get a team down and you’ve got to take a 20-point lead to 25 to 30 to 35. And we’ve buried teams here in the past, and we’ve got to get a little bit better killer mentality, if you will, to just put teams away when you’ve got a lead on that. And we weren’t bad. Our offense was good enough to keep them at a good arm’s the whole game, but our defense has to get a little bit better. And Mark was right on that.”

Oats on Alabama’s defensive plan on Josh Hubbard…

“We didn’t want him to touch it as much as possible. I mean, he torched us last time. He makes such tough shots. He’s going to get them up if he gets the ball. Shoot, he got 22 shots up tonight. He’s going to get them up if you let him touch the ball. So when he gives it up, don’t let him get it back. We tried to do a little bit more of that, tried to make him work for everything. Obviously, it helped that he got in some foul trouble and didn’t play as many minutes in the first half as maybe he normally would. So that helped with the six-point first half we held him to. But yeah, we were definitely trying not to let him touch it as often as he did last game.”

Oats on success exploiting Mississippi State’s 3-point defense in both games…

“They play hard on defense. Their system’s a little bit more designed to turn you over, if you will. So if you don’t turn it over, you can get quality shots if you move it. And they’ve turned a lot of teams over. They played some zone in the second half. Zones tend to give up a lot of 3s. And I think maybe the man wasn’t working. They went zone, or they were in foul trouble. Either way, I’m not sure why. Zone seemed to give up more 3s, so that probably helped a little bit in the second half. And we were able to get some 3s off our offensive rebounds, too, which doesn’t really have much to do with the defensive philosophy. 

“But we were fortunate to get 45 up because we like to get them up, and we made 22. I think this was the fifth time we made 20-plus 3s and one away from our own record. We had 23 at LSU and 22 at Auburn, so the third time we’ve hit at least 22 and the fifth time we’ve hit 20. So it’s not the first time we’ve done it. We’ve done this to other teams in the past, as well.”

Oats on how much are 3s an area of Mo Dioubate’s game he’s trying to develop….

“We want all of our players to work on their game and continue to develop their game. And I think that’s the next step with Mo is kind of play more of that spacing four where you can knock down shots. It’s going to take a lot of work. Now, he’s in there working. I mean, he went 3-of-3 against Texas, 1-of-2 tonight. We want him taking good ones, like open catch-and-shoot 3s. That’s the thing with us. If you’re willing to get in the gym and work, like go ahead and use what you’re working on in the gym. If he’s working his tail off on shooting 3s and they’re going to leave him open… 

“Jarin had a pretty rough start to the year shooting 3s, and we told him, just keep shooting every open shot he gets. Noah Clowney had a pretty rough stretch to start his freshman year here, and shoot, he knocked down four before the first meeting time out there when he broke out of his slum. Mo is not to the level of shooter as Clowney or Jarin is, but we’re going to work on all offseason, and hopefully, he’s a much-improved shooter come next year. But even now, he’s working there. Went 3-of-3 one game, went 2-of-2 tonight.”

Oats on if more hedging on ball screens was a matchup thing with Mississippi State…

“Hubbard, 38. Didn’t want to see clean looks coming out of ball screens. Yeah, matchup specific that dropped 38 on us last game.”

Oats on how the 3-guard lineup has benefited Chris Youngblood off-ball as a shooter…

“I think it’s really helped him being in there with two of those other three a lot more. Labaron can create. When you look, Labaron and Mark and Holloway, the three of those guys that kind of create, didn’t realize they had 20 assists combined between the three of them. So trying to keep two of those guys in and having to CY play with two of those guys a lot more, and having Mark play with at least one more of those other two, I think has significantly helped the offense, helped the ball move.

“I don’t think we can plan on scoring on 111 every night, but I think it’s been good. We need to get our defense better. Defense sometimes takes a little bit of a hit when you go a little smaller. So we got to make sure we got the right matchups to play that way, if you will. But offensively, it’s been a better look for us to have more creators in there to create shots.

“Jarin went 3-of-3 tonight. Jarin needs catch-and-shoots. Jarin’s shooting a lot better with those guys in. We went through the numbers and looked at him when we decided to put Labaron in for him. We showed him how much better he is with two of those three creators in, and it’s helped his game. We told him he’d get at least as many minutes, and he has. Ever since we took him out of the starting lineup, he’s played more minutes than he was averaging before, and his minutes have been more efficient, which is what really matters. So CY has been more efficient. Jarin has been more efficient. Mark Sears has been more efficient. It’s helped a lot of guys on offense since we kind of made that change in the lineup and kept the rotations a certain way like that.”

Oats on if there’s been an effort to try to get Grant Nelson to be more aggressive… 

“We want him to be aggressive. That dunk he had in the second half, we’d like to see that a lot more, kind of go in on the catch already. Teams are loading up off him. They used to do it all the time to Herb Jones. Herb was great on this. When he got to New Orleans with the Pelicans, they said he was the best guy on the team already on that – we called it a go-catch – catch already to kind of beat the heavy help that they try to play off him. We need him to do a little more of that. 

“The post-ups, drawing doubles, because he’s a good passer out of it, we’d like to see more of that. So yeah, we’d like to see him more aggressive, as long as he’s not turning it over. He’s had some turnover issues. He ended up turning it over three times tonight. He had the one drive on the baseline. I don’t even know what happened. We’ll have to go look at the video. But as long as he’s not turning it over, we’d like him to be as aggressive as he can be because he makes good plays when he’s not turning it over.”

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