Nate Oats explains Mark Sears' shooting struggles to start season

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama guard Mark Sears was one of the best shooters in all of college basketball a season ago.

Having a first team All-SEC and All-American caliber year in 2023-24, Sears shot 43.8 percent from beyond the arc on just under six attempts per game. Those numbers put him up there with some of the best shooters in the country, and with him returning for a fifth season of college basketball, the expectation was that those numbers would continue.

What’s happened has been the opposite. Sears has struggled mightily to find a consistent stroke from deep to open the 2024-25 season, currently sitting at 28.8 percent from deep on an increased 6.5 attempts per game.

Those shooting numbers include two games where he didn’t make a three at all against Arkansas State and Illinois, and in his last game against Oregon he shot an abysmal 1-for-11 from downtown.

Heading into a marquee road matchup with No. 20 North Carolina on Wednesday night, Alabama head coach Nate Oats detailed how the Crimson Tide staff has worked to figure out what the problem with Sears’ shooting has been.

“With Mark, we have looked at it pretty in-depth. We looked at all the threes taken this year and last year to see what the difference was,” Oats said. “I think, you know a few things. One, is teams are definitely gearing their defense towards Mark a little bit different. I think like I mentioned before, our spacing hasn’t been great. He’s found himself on top of the ball too much. If you space away, you can step in, and that’s kind of been the biggest difference I’ve seen. He hasn’t been able to get space far enough off to where he can be stepping into every shot. He’s been kind of stepping out of a lot of shots.”

Oats has criticized the spacing of the Alabama offense at other points this season as well. In an offense like Alabama’s that wants to play with tempo and find shots early in the shot clock, having proper spacing is paramount in getting quality looks.

What Oats is talking about is both Sears and other Alabama players playing too close to the 3-point line at times in their halfcourt offense, not allowing players to step into their shot, which hurts a shooter’s rhythm,

Oats also acknowledged how Sears shoots many of his shots from deeper than a normal 3-point shot, but didn’t take issue with it because he trusts Sears’ range, he just wants him to be spaced out even more to be able to step into those shots as well.

“We looked, a lot of his shots are taken from pretty deep. But he actually shot, we chart on-the-line threes and off-the-line threes, he’s shooting a much higher percentage of his shots off the line compared to last year,” Oats said. “He shot almost half his threes from off the line last year and he was at 51 percent. It’s not like he can’t shoot from deep, but he makes at a much higher clip when he’s actually stepping into his shot. The only way you can be stepping into your shot is spacing away from the ball so that you can step into your shot. We’ve got to get him off the ball more, and spaced wide in a way so that he can be stepping in.”

Oats also addressed how important spacing is for the offense whenever teams wants to play tighter defense on Sears specifically so it’s harder for him to get a shot off. If Sears is spaced properly, tight defense on him creates much wide driving lanes and easier kickouts to other shooters Alabama has at its disposal.

“And if teams don’t want to help off him that’s fine,” Oats said. “We’ve got Holloway, Philon, guys that can get in the paint, drive downhill and use the space the other teams are giving if they want to hug onto Mark out there.”

Oats maintained confidence that Sears will improve his shooting going forward, and included that he shot a ridiculous clip during a Tuesday morning workout. He doesn’t seem worried about Sears’ shooting going forward, but he’s going to need to have a good night for Alabama to beat North Carolina on Wednesday night.

“I think we’ll see a much better shooting Mark Sears, he’s working on it,” Oats said. “He was in there this morning with Coach Murphy shooting, I think he shot 81 percent on the tracking deal. We’re working on some of that.”