Notebook: Nate Oats talks Labaron Philon's draft stock, Aiden Sherrell's playing time

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama basketball is coming off its first loss of the season on Friday night, coming at the hands of a now-top 10 Purdue team in a difficult road environment. The No. 8 Crimson Tide now has an entire slate of difficult games on the horizon, and it continues with a matchup against No. 25 Illinois in Birmingham tomorrow night.

Alabama head coach Nate Oats previewed the matchup in his Tuesday press conference, specifically highlighting developments with a few specific players.

Labaron Philon’s draft stock rising

Freshman guard Labaron Philon has been one of the biggest surprises on this Alabama roster. He’s scoring 12 points per game on over 50 percent shooting from the floor this season, while also being the Crimson Tide’s leading assist man with over four per game.

Against Purdue, in his first-ever college road game, he led the team in scoring with 18 points, was the team’s leading shooter from deep on a night where most of the team struggled to shoot it, and showed his activity on both the glass and the defensive end.

“He came in with the right mindset,” Oats said. “He came in not expecting any minutes, just whatever he could earn, he’d be happy with. He came in with zero expectations on NBA stuff, just came here trying to get better and compete as hard as he can, make himself better and make the program as good as he can. When you come in with the right mindset, it parlays itself into good basketball. I think how hard he’s competed since he stepped on campus, how much he’s willing to be coached, the improvements he’s made just playing the way we want him to play.”

Philon’s excellent play over the first two weeks of the season has garnered attention from NBA scouts. Oats said assistant coach Preston Murphy was even called by an NBA scout about Philon today.

“Draft boards, somebody sent me something today that has him projected 24th,” Oats said. “We don’t want our guys playing just for the NBA, but to me that’s a byproduct of playing the right way, it just happens. You’ve got that kind of talent and play the right way, those types of things happen.”

Oats admits fault in use of Aiden Sherrell against Purdue

Purdue dominated Alabama on the interior throughout the game on Friday night, with forward Trey Kaufman-Renn leading all scorers in the game with 26.

Cliff Omoruyi did a decent job containing him in isolation post-ups, but it was an automatic bucket anytime any other Alabama player was guarding Kauffman-Renn, specifically Grant Nelson, who spent a large chunk of the game on him as Omoruyi dealt with foul trouble. Freshman center Aiden Sherrell only played three minutes, all coming in the first half. After Sherrell committed two quick fouls, Oats never looked to him again.

Oats owned up to it, and admitted he should have given Sherrell another shot.

“I screwed up, to be honest with you. I told him that,” Oats said. “He should have gotten more minutes. I thought the first two minutes he didn’t really look like he was necessarily ready for it. I went back and watched the tape, as much as we struggled guarding Kaufman-Renn, he’s our biggest guy, we should have gone with him and gave him another shot at it. That’s on me, I let him know.”

Oats also said he encouraged Sherrell to be vocal and ask about receiving another chance to play if he felt like he could handle the challenge.

“I told him, though, if he felt like he could have guarded him, feel free to tell me during the game, ‘give me a shot, give me two minutes at him I’ll shut him down.’ I should have gone and asked him myself with how much some of the other guys were struggling to guard him, see if he could have done a little bit better of a job,” Oats said. “His attitude’s great. I love him. He makes you want to play him more because he’s come in and worked really hard the last three days. I would anticipate him getting a lot more minutes that that his next game.”

Oats details ways to get Mark Sears going again

The performance by star Alabama guard Mark Sears against Purdue was an unexpected one for a player of his caliber. While Sears was Alabama’s second-leading scorer with 15, he was uncharacteristically inefficient from the field, shooting 5-of-15 including 1-of-6 from deep.

“They definitely got into him, tried to frustrate him,” Oats said. “Mark’s a scorer, he needs to see the ball go through the rim and they did a good job not letting him get off early. They denied him, made it tough on his catches, tried to blow up handoffs and ball screens. They did a good job.”

Oats harkened back to how Alabama had to use Brandon Miller, describing how teams would guard Miller differently because of how capable of a scorer he was. He said Alabama could use Sears in similar ways, scheming different ways to get him going.

“Now we’ve probably got to do a better job of getting him open with screens, using him as a screener if teams try to help off him, kind of like what we had to do with Brandon Miller,” Oats said. “And Mark’s preseason player of the year in some of these publications. Teams are gonna guard him like that, and we as a coaching staff have to do a better job of getting him going and then he’s got to do a better job when he does get it. I think he’ll be ready to play a whole lot better game against Illinois.”