Nate Oats used Boston Celtics' approach to attack Kentucky 'seals'

No. 4 Alabama defeated No. 8 Kentucky, 102-97, on Saturday in Lexington’s Rupp Arena.

It was a matchup between two of the country’s best offenses, and the Crimson Tide came out on top with an impressive offensive showing. Alabama scored 100 or more points for the fifth time this season and the third time versus an opponent ranked in the AP Top 25 Poll. That’s the most by the Tide in a single season since in almost 70 years (1948-49).

Five of Alabama’s nine available players scored in double figures with Grant Nelson (25 points) and Mark Sears (24) leading the way. Following the road win, head coach Nate Oats was asked about the Crimson Tide’s players seeing the floor so well on the offensive end.

Oats said he approached the top-10 battle by borrowing a term from the Boston Celtics.

“I kind of stole the term ‘seal’ from Joe Mazzulla,” Oats said. “I’ve spent some time up in Boston a few times, and they attack seals, if you will. I love the point that he made, like sharks, killer whales. Killer whales basically eat seals for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and they’re just kind of sitting there, sitting ducks. But they always attack in a school of killer whales. 

“So we’re going to try to attack mismatches still with five guys. But I did think we had a pretty good awareness of who the mismatches were and went at them. The out-of-bounds play we kept scoring on, kind of going at some of their seals, if you will, was just invented on the fly, and we now need to give it a name. But we just kind of kept giving it to our four men.”

Nelson scored an Alabama career-high 25 points with 19 points either in the paint or at the line. Although he fouled out with 2:29 to play, Mo Dioubate added eight points and eight rebounds in just 15 minutes, led the Tide in +/- (+21) and received the Hard Hat award.

Those two “killer whales” in crimson helped Oats and Alabama attack Kentucky’s “seals.”

“Get it to them on the elbow, whichever elbow matches their strong hand, put the seal in the action and go at them,” Oats said. “We were able to generate some fouls, some easy buckets kind of coming downhill on that. I thought we did a good job recognizing mismatches, seals, if you will, kind of going at them. They’re trying to get their matchups, and we’re just moving the guys around to where we needed them to get.

“I think they switched it, had it on the inbounder. We quick-switched the inbounder and put them in the action. Coach (Mark) Pope knows what he’s doing. He also knew what he was dealing with, and we had a little bit of a chess match going out there at times. I thought our guys did a pretty good job making reads. We were way more aggressive in ball screens kind of coming downhill to attack some of those weaker defenders that they have.”

Alabama (15-3, 4-1 SEC) bounced back in a big way at Kentucky, erasing the sting of the Ole Miss loss on its home floor. There are still 13 regular-season games left in front of the Crimson Tide, but if it can harness this Saturday mentality, this win can be a springboard.

“I think that lost against Ole Miss got us refocused,” Oats said. “This was a completely different team than the one that played Ole Miss. So if we learned the lessons we needed to in that loss Tuesday and we don’t forget them for the remainder of the year, it may have been the best thing to happen to us. We just got to make sure this is not a one-game deal.”

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