Nate Oats praises Alabama's urgency defending Josh Hubbard in Mississippi State rematch

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The first time Alabama played Mississippi State this season it was an extremely close game, with the Crimson Tide escaping Starkville with a 4-point win a little less than a month ago. In that game, Bulldog guard Josh Hubbard torched Alabama for a career-high 38 points.

Now facing Hubbard and Mississippi State again in the rematch, one of the biggest keys for Alabama was to not let him have that kind of offensive game the second time around.

“I would hope that there’s a sense of urgency to not give Hubbard another career high,” Alabama head coach Nate Oats said on Monday before the game.

Alabama responded to that challenge to the tune of a 38-point win on its home floor Tuesday night, playing one of its best defensive games of the season. Hubbard scored 21, but he did so on an inefficient 22 shots, and scored a large portion of his points once the game was already out of hand.

“I thought Labaron (Philon)’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,” Oats said. “But there’s other guys that took their turn on Hubbard that I thought did a pretty good job. I thought (Mark) 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.”

Oats frequently uses analytics to help him determine who his best defenders are, citing leverage numbers as indicators for whether Alabama is a better defensive team with a player on the floor vs. off the floor. He ran down the list after the game with a number of Crimson Tide players that had overwhelmingly positive defensive leverage numbers against Mississippi State.

“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,” Oats said. “I thought (Chris) Youngblood was really locked into getting stops and trying to hold guys accountable, and he was +36 in his defensive leverage. I thought Cliff (Omoruyi) 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.”

Visibly, the defensive effort looked much more cohesive than it had in previous games. Communication was sharp on switches and ball screens, and the players tasked with guarding Hubbard did a lot of face-guarding off the ball in order to deny him touches, limiting his chances to make an impact.

“We didn’t want him to touch it as much as possible. I mean, he torched us last time,” Oats said. “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.”

In the first half, Alabama held Mississippi State to 27 points on 0.75 points per possession, easily one of its best defensive halves of the season. The second half wasn’t quite as good as the Bulldogs scored 46, including 12 points in the final four minutes of the game.

While the second half defense didn’t have a major impact on the overall game, it still gave Oats something to harp on when the game ended.

“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,” Oats said. “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 playing with a lead.”

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