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Nate Oats yet to determine Alabama's starting lineup against Mississippi State

63571867_t466o7i5ncby:Blake Byler•01/28/25•

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AlabamaStartersTexasA&M
Alabama starters vs. Texas A&M (courtesy UA Athletics)

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama changed its starting lineup against LSU on Saturday night for the first time in over a month. Since about mid-December, the Crimson Tide had started the same five of Mark Sears, Labaron Philon, Jarin Stevenson, Grant Nelson and Cliff Omoruyi, going 7-1 in those games.

Against LSU, Oats moved Philon to the bench in favor of Chris Youngblood, citing a tweaked ankle for Philon as one of the main reasons for not starting up. Later on in the game Oats made an even more eyebrow-raising decision, benching Sears and Omoruyi to start the second half in favor of Aden Holloway and Mo Dioubate.

With all the lineup shuffling that took place in the last game, Oats said on Tuesday that he hadn’t made the decision on who will start in the team’s game against No. 14 Mississippi State tomorrow night.

“I don’t know who we’re gonna start, I haven’t determined that,” Oats said. “All I know is this if [injured forward Derrion Reid] does get the clearance finally to go, we’ll have 10 healthy, available players for us. Any combination of five of them we put on the floor, I think are pretty good. When you go with the guys we’ve been starting before, you bring in CY, Holloway, Mo D off the bench, Reid if he was able to stay healthy all year and get the reps these guys have gotten, you’ve got eight or nine guys that could easily start, put up starter minutes and starter points. It’s hard to match our depth, and we’ve needed it at various times this year.”

So far this season Oats has started six different lineup combinations and put eight different players in the starting lineup over the course of the year. The only players who have started every game have been Sears and Omoruyi.

Oats also made the point that, like it was against LSU, there’s no guarantee that the first half starters will be the same as the second half starters.

“I’ve made it very clear to the guys over the last few weeks, that’s part of the reason going into the second half against LSU, the guys that start the game are not guaranteed to start the second half moving forward,” Oats said. “Just don’t plan on it being that way. We’re gonna start the guys that give us the best chance to get the best start to the second half.

“If you’re supposed to beat a team by 15-20, to be tied at the half, we didn’t perform the way we were supposed to in the first half. So we’re gonna make a change. Then you go through, you look at some plus-minuses, some leverage numbers, who practiced well the day before. You look at lots of different data in a quick amount of time, you make a decision, and you hope that you sparked some guys and get them to play hard.”

Alabama’s game against Mississippi State will tip off at 8 p.m. CT tomorrow night on SEC Network.

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