Nate Oats planning to experiment with different guard combinations

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama’s loss to No. 1 Auburn on Saturday featured some interesting statistics from the Crimson Tide’s guard rotation.

Mark Sears, the team’s starting point guard, led the team in field goal attempts by a mile. He shot the ball 17 times, and made just four of them. No other Alabama player had more than 11 field goal attempts, and the next-closest guard had eight.

That guard was Aden Holloway, who only took four attempts from 3-point range. Chris Youngblood only took three. Both players average to attempt nearly 11 threes a game combined, and even more than that in SEC play, so their seven total in this game was far less than what Oats would like.

The team only totaled eight assists on the night, over half the team’s per-game average of 16.7 Sears and Labaron Philon were the only players that had multiple assists during the game, with two each.

All of these data points have led Crimson Tide head coach Nate Oats to re-evaluate some aspects of his guard rotation, specifically which players need to be playing alongside which players.

“We’ve looked at a few different analytic things that way since the Auburn game. With the shooters-creators combination, we probably need at least two of the three,” Oats said.

“Can you play Labaron with Mark more, to create, to get Mark easier shots? Can you play with Holloway and Sears together, they can both create and shoot, to get them both easier shots? Can you play Labaron with either one of those, Labaron can create to get them shots? When you do play ‘Baron with Mark, since he doesn’t shoot it as well as Biz, CY and Mark, can you put him in there with two of (the shooters)? What does it do to us defensively if you put Mark and Holloway in together, since they’re both a little smaller?”

Obviously, there are lots of factors to consider. Alabama’s injury situation has made the guard rotation a bit of a puzzle, having lost both Latrell Wrightsell and Houston Mallette for the season. The loss of two shooters of their caliber has left Alabama with only three shooters over 35 percent for the season in Holloway, Youngblood and Sears. Oats is trying to find the balance of playing the correct amount of shooters alongside players who can create shots for others, which Sears and Philon would fall into.

“We did look at a lot of those 2-man lineups, 3-man lineups. We looked at a lot of that,” Oats said. “We are gonna experiment a little bit with some of that stuff, making sure there are enough guys that can create offense, enough shooters out there to keep the floor open with the appropriate lineups in. We did take a good, hard look at that over the last couple days.”

Oats was also asked if he’s considered moving Philon back into the starting lineup. Philon has come off the bench since Alabama’s game against LSU on Jan. 25 after suffering an ankle injury in practice, but his last two games against Texas and Auburn have been some of his best in SEC play.

“Yeah, there is. We love what CY is giving us with shooting, toughness, leadership. The issue is, as good a shooter as he is, and there’s a lot of things I love about him, Mark’s the only creator in the starting lineup,” Oats said. “It helps to have either Mark and Holloway, or Mark and Labaron together. Holloway’s been great off the bench, he can score it in a hurry. His pace, he’s the fastest of our guards, sometimes it’s nice to bring a fresh guard that’s playing super fast against the other team’s second unit or tired first unit. If you want to have two creators in, is it Labaron and Sears, do you make a quick sub early?

“There’s been talk of (playing Sears and Holloway together more) and there’s been talk of (starting Philon) as well.”

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