Nate Oats Following Alabama’s 38-Point Win Over Mississippi State Tuesday

Tuscaloosa, AL– Following Alabama's 111-73 victory over No. 24 Mississippi State on Tuesday night, Crimson Tide head coach Nate Oats spoke with the media about his team's performance.

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Oats mentioned Mississippi State's Josh Hubbard several times during Tuesday night's press conference following the Tide's 38-point victory over the Bulldogs, who had an outstanding performance the last time the two teams met on January 29th, when Hubbard scored 38 points in the Bulldogs' 88-84 loss to the Tide. Oats went on to say how pleased he was with his defense's execution of the gameplan, which was to stop Hubbard. Alabama only allowed the Bulldogs' guard to score 21 points throughout the game, shooting 8-22 from the field and 3-12 from beyond the arc.

Oats went on to discuss Mark Sears' recent performance, mentioning that the fifth-year senior guard had a double-double in Tuesday's win, with 21 points and 10 assists. When asked how the team benefits when Sears has nights like this, Oats replied, "I've been telling you guys he's playing the best basketball of his career on both sides of the ball." When asked how the Tide has gone 9-0 in games where the Senior guard has 7 or more assists, Oats said, "Just draw up a lot of plays and get Sears assists moving forward."

When asked what he told his team with a 53-27 lead at halftime, Oats replied, "You can use the excuse that it's hard to play with a lead." Oats went on: "I mean if you're immature it's hard to play with a lead." The fifth-year head coach went on to discuss how you can't "relax" when you're up big in the SEC, bringing up to his players at halftime Georgia's big lead over No.3 Florida in their matchup today, which saw the Gators cut into the Bulldogs' 25-point lead and even hold a one-point advantage in the last three minutes of the game before Georgia pulled away and won 88-83 over Florida on Tuesday.

Alabama's head coach praised Chris Youngblood, who had an outstanding game, scoring 27 points on 7-11 from three-point range. When asked about Youngblood, Oats praised the Crimson Tide guard for playing alongside Mark Sears and Labaron Philon, which he said allows Youngblood to get more shots and helps the ball flow through the offense, resulting in guys open shooting the three at a high rate, as the Tide did tonight, with 17 of Alabama's 22 made threes coming from guards.

Oats and the Crimson Tide will improve their season record to 23-5, including 12-3 in SEC play. Alabama will attempt to build on this victory as they prepare to face conference foe No. 5 Tennessee on Saturday, March 1st in Knoxville.

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