Oats talks team effort ahead of another SEC showdown

You'd be hard-pressed to find a team with more top-to-bottom talent than Alabama in the SEC, and even the entire country. Yet, Alabama is now 1-2 to begin conference play, including a Saturday night home loss to an unranked team. For head coach Nate Oats, he understands that talent alone isn't enough and that you need effort to match that talent to produce adequate output.

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During Monday night's "Hey Coach!" with Nate Oats, show host and voice of the Alabama Crimson Tide, Chris Stewart, asked Oats if motivation was ever an issue when teams didn't have a top-25 ranking beside their name. "Our players need to understand that everyone in the SEC is good, Texas came in 0-2, and they outplayed us.... the players on the other team have a certain level of pride, they're not going to come in and let you beat them."

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Needless to say, Alabama's somewhat sluggish start has not been completely within the realm of its control. Throughout the start of the season, Oats has pushed out 10 different starting lineups through only 16 games. In a press conference earlier on Monday, Oats said that he couldn't remember if he had gone through that many starting lineups in an entire season, much less halfway through January.

However, the gauntlet of a schedule in the Southeastern Conference doesn't care about the injury report, and it doesn't care who's playing through pain. Tuesday's matchup with the Bulldogs of Mississippi State will provide more of the same, with the Tide likely missing three players heading into Starkville. Among those will be veteran and senior guard Latrell Wrightsell Jr., who will be missing his second consecutive game due to a right leg injury.

It's all about getting hot at the right time, especially when it comes to a shooting-dependent team like Alabama. But it's going to be hard to build momentum for players if they can't consistently log minutes on the floor. Following Tuesday's game with Miss. State, the Tide will hit the road for a date with the Oklahoma Sooners on Saturday, with a home date against the Vols looming the following Saturday.