Nate Oats 'couldn't be more proud' of second half effort against LSU

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — As the buzzer sounded midway through Saturday night’s game between No. 4 Alabama and LSU, the game felt a little too familiar to something we’d seen not too long ago.

The Tide and he Tigers were tied at 40 apiece, another home game where Alabama was seemingly the better team but played down to competition and found itself in a close game. It had similar feelings to the Ole Miss game on Jan. 14, when the Rebels came into Tuscaloosa and played like the tougher team for all 40 minutes, beating Alabama on its home floor.

LSU outrebounded Alabama by six in the first half, and led the battle on the offensive glass by eight. Both numbers were surprising, given that the Tide is a top-20 team nationally both in rebounding margin and offensive rebounding rate. LSU’s Corey Chest dominated the glass on his own, grabbing 15 first-half rebounds while Alabama as a team had just 17.

Defensively, Alabama allowed LSU to score over 1.1 points per possession in the first half, much higher than what head coach Nate Oats expected, especially against an offense that’s outside the top-100 in efficiency this season.

Because of the lackluster first half performance from a defensive and effort standpoint, Oats made a change. He switched up the second half starting lineup in an attempt to get better effort and energy from his guys, and it paid off.

“I thought we did a pretty good job defensively in the second half. We gave up a 1.11 in the first half and then held them to a 0.83 in the second half. So we’ve been challenging these guys,” Oats said. “I didn’t think our second-half defense had been very good lately. So we made the point to the guys, we’re done starting the same group that starts the game. We’re going to start the guys that we think give us the best chance to get a great start in the second half. So we subbed in two guys in the starting lineup, kind of looked at some leverage numbers, +/- numbers and kind of challenged a couple guys. And listen, I couldn’t be more proud of our guys in the second half when we gave up a 0.83.”

In the second half starting lineup, Oats subbed Aden Holloway for Mark Sears and Mo Dioubate for Cliff Omoruyi.

The energy, effort and intensity were all infinitely better in the second half. Alabama won the rebounding battle in the final 20 minutes, held LSU to 0.83 points per possession as Oats said, and looked much more interested in doing the little things required to win a basketball game.

The effort on the glass was much better. Chest only had thee rebounds in the second half after his 15 in the first half. Omoruyi grabbed seven rebounds in the second half, responding well to his halftime benching and playing great the rest of the game.

“Cliff, I didn’t think he was bringing it. They had a kid with 15 rebounds,” Oats said. “Cliff was not rebounding like he needed to, wasn’t playing as hard as we liked, and he ends up going on playing extremely hard in the second half, had a great attitude on the bench and ends up winning the Hard Hat after not starting the second half. So I kind of just told the guys that’s how life goes sometimes. There’s a little adversity and you gotta challenge it well. I was super proud of the way Cliff handled it.”

Oats praised Omoruyi’s second-half play in his opening statement after the game, and was later asked which other players’ second-half performances stuck out to him.

“I thought just about every guy that played did, to be honest with you,” Oats said. “You look at (Mo) Dioubate, I didn’t think he was his normal self in the first half. I thought it was better in the second half. I thought Jarin Stevenson, like I said, the guy only scored three points, had three rebounds, but he’s locked into the defense, ends up with three steals and plus-16. I thought Jarin’s effort was pretty good. I think Holloway’s getting better on defense. I thought he was pretty good guarding people. And Grant (Nelson), I mean, Grant’s been pretty solid all year, to be honest. That three he hit was big, the free throws were big. We needed to rebound it better, but he was solid, as well.

“I thought everybody we played in the second half gave us the intensity and the effort we needed to win that game.”

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