Nate Oats wants to see Alabama embrace guarding other team's best scorer

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Nate Oats rolled his eyes when asked the question.

Multiple times this season, the opposing team’s top scorer has finished with 35 or more points against Alabama. The most recent occurrence was Wednesday night in Starkville, where the Crimson Tide won 88-84 but allowed Josh Hubbard to score a career-high 38.

Earlier this season, Alabama allowed Texas A&M’s Zhuric Phelps to score 35, Rutgers’ Dylan Harper to score 37 and North Dakota’s Treysen Eaglestaff to score 40. The Crimson Tide (18-3, 7-1 SEC) won all of the games, but the opponent’s top threats still got theirs.

With 10 more games to go in the regular season, including seven against top-15 teams, is Oats concerned by Alabama’s inability to slow down the opposing team’s best players?

He is, and the sixth-year head coach wants to see his players rise to the challenge.

“I kind of said, who’s gonna step up and say, ‘Hey, Coach. I’ve got this. He’s done,’” Oats said. “As of right now, I really haven’t had anybody. (Chris) Youngblood’s done it twice. He kind of did it at A&M. You go back to that, Phelps had over 30 on us, too. Youngblood did it with Phelps. Youngblood did it late in the game with Hubbard after he had already kind of had his career night going. 

“It’d be nice if some had some intensity and some pride about them to step up and be like, ‘Coach, I’ve got this guy. Just put me on him. It’s done. I’ve got it.’”

Oats continued, “We’ve had some of that in the past. Even some of our best players have, Brandon Miller. Now, Brandon Miller’s 6-8, 6-9 and can move and is really athletic. Brandon did that at times, and he’s capable of it.

“… It would be nice if we had a little more of that. As we currently stand, we probably don’t. So we’ve gotta get a guy really amped up that’s capable of guarding the other team’s best players.”

The scouting report this week will most likely highlight Georgia freshman Asa Newell, who is averaing 15.2 points and 7.0 rebounds in his rookie year. At 6-foot-1, Newell isn’t a high-scoring guard like the players mentioned above, but he has been the Bulldogs’ best player.

However, Alabama’s bigs will be tasked with guarding him on Saturday, February 1 (3 p.m. CT on ESPN2). That hasn’t been as much of a problem for the Crimson Tide. In fact, Oats took a moment to praise Mouhamed Dioubate and his willingness on the defensive end.

Oats wants to see others have that same mindset against a dangerous opposing player.

“Mo D will do it going into games with like other tough guys,” Oats said. “Maybe not so much some of the guards, but Mo’s will almost like start pumping the other guy up. He looks at you like you’re crazy. ‘So-and-so’s looking for you. I’m looking for him.’ And he usually is. He’s usually got that one under control.

“We’ve kind of got that category, I wanna say, taken care of. We need to get the other one where they’ve got dynamic guards like Harper, Eaglestaff, Phelps, Hubbard going where somebody can lock him up. So yeah, it is a concern until somebody steps and decides they’re gonna step up to the challenge and kind of lock these guys up.”

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